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    A Pocket Guide to Prayer
    A Pocket Guide to Prayer
    A Pocket Guide to Prayer
    Ebook130 pages1 hour

    A Pocket Guide to Prayer

    By Steve Harper

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    About this ebook

    In response to comments from booksellers and readers, Upper Room Books has reissued A Pocket Guide to Prayer in a slightly larger trim size with a new, leatherlike cover.

    The content is exactly the same as the first edition, which had a brown, satiny, paperback cover. This lovely, classic, and compact book contains a wealth of information, such as helps for praying up to 5 times a day, over 100 prayers, hymn texts, and psalms.

    Harper also explains how to create a personal Rule of Life and how to read scripture meditatively (lectio divina). He includes a reading list to help you grow in your prayer life.

    Tuck this classic prayer book in your pocket or purse, and you have at your fingertips all you need to make a daily connection with God.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherUpper Room Books
    Release dateNov 1, 2013
    ISBN9780835812061
    A Pocket Guide to Prayer
    Author

    Steve Harper

    Steve Harper, PhD, is vice president and professor of spiritual formation at the Florida campus of Asbury Theological Seminary. He is the author of numerous magazine articles and has written twelve books, including Devotional Life in the Wesleyan Tradition and Praying through the Lord’s Prayer. Dr. Harper and his wife, Jeannie, live in Orlando, Florida. They have two grown children and two grandchildren.

    Read more from Steve Harper

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      Book preview

      A Pocket Guide to Prayer - Steve Harper

      A-Pocket-Guide-to-Prayer_HARPER_cvrRGB2pocketguidetoprayer-fpcrosstp_fmt

      A Pocket Guide

      to Prayer

      Steve Harper

      urblogo_fmt

      A Pocket Guide to Prayer

      Copyright © 2010 by Steve Harper

      All rights reserved.

      No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the publisher except in brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information, write Upper Room Books, 1908 Grand Avenue, Nashville, TN 37212.

      The Upper Room Web site: www.upperroom.org

      UPPER ROOM®, UPPER ROOM BOOKS®, and design logos are trademarks owned by The Upper Room®, a ministry of GBOD®, Nashville, Tennessee. All rights reserved.

      Unless otherwise indicated, all scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

      The last page constitutes an extension of this copyright page.

      Cover design: Bruce Gore / Gore Studio

      First printing: 2010

      Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

      Harper, Steve, 1947—

      A pocket guide to prayer / written & compiled by Steve Harper.

      p. cm.

      ISBN 978-0-8358-1042-5

      EPUB ISBN 978-0-8358-1206-1

      MOBI ISBN 978-0-8358-1052-4

      1. Prayer—Christianity. I. Title.

      BV210.3.H364 2011

      248.3'2—dc22

        2010036368

      Printed in the United States of America

      CONTENTS

      Preface

      Holy Time

      1. Prayer upon Awakening

      2. Morning Prayer

      3. Noontime Prayer

      4. Evening Prayer

      5. Prayer at Bedtime

      Psalm of the Day

      Hymn and Prayer of the Day

      Week One

      Week Two

      Week Three

      Week Four

      Instructions from the Saints

      Week One

      Week Two

      Week Three

      Week Four

      A Rule of Life

      Lectio Divina

      Growing in Prayer

      Preface

      Nothing substitutes for time alone with God. Whatever we call it—the daily office, quiet time, devotions—it is the work of the heart, from whence everything else springs in the life of Christian holiness. Throughout the history of Christian spirituality, manuals of devotion have been produced to assist disciples in their formation. This prayer book now comes to join those in both purpose and content.

      In our day and time we are witnessing a new emergence of the Spirit all over the earth and, along with it, a new commitment to the practice of the means of grace and the keeping of other spiritual disciplines. Living liturgy and accompanying forms of prayer are as necessary now as ever to sustain the life of faith. This little book will help establish you in classic formational elements that Christians today are practicing with renewed devotion.

      I was moved to produce this pocket guide to prayer because of my use of an earlier, similar volume compiled by Ralph Cushman. A Pocket Prayer Book remains a classic work and serves as a valuable resource in my formation.

      I pray that this current volume will be used by God for purposes similar to those achieved in Cushman's work—to cultivate the life of God in the human soul and to sustain the holy habits of prayer and devotion. To that end, I offer you the prayer that Ralph Cushman wrote to introduce his little volume.

      —Steve Harper

      Set us afire, Lord,

      Stir us, we pray!

      While the world perishes

      We go our way,

      Purposeless, passionless,

      Day after day.

      Set us afire, Lord,

      Stir us, we pray!

      —Ralph S. Cushman

      Holy Time

      God gives each of us the same amount of time. The difference comes in how we understand and make use of the gift. Time must be organized and managed, but it must also be consecrated. Spiritual formation integrates these activities, with the result that time becomes holy. Sacred time provides the space for the work of the heart and the actions of the hands.

      From Old Testament times until now, literary sources indicate that men and women of faith arranged their days and punctuated their time with particular moments of personal and corporate worship. While specific patterns and practices vary widely, spiritually minded persons acknowledge the essential nature of stated devotional acts throughout the day to spiritual well-being. This prayer book honors one historic pattern comprised of five daily times of prayer; yet it leaves room for adaptation and expansion of the fundamental cycle.

      Equally visible in the history of Christian spirituality is the importance of singing. The book of Psalms served as Israel's songbook. Jesus and his disciples sang (Matt. 26:30), as did the early Christians (Eph. 5:19). The devotional life has always included what John Wesley called hymns and other prayers.This daily order of devotion includes a place for praying the psalms and singing.

      The aim of it all is to pray without ceasing(1 Thess. 5:17). God does not call us to have a devotional time but to live a devotional life. Any specific time of prayer is meant to produce a greater awareness that all time is God's time, that every moment is a God-moment. Only then will we experience living faith: holiness of heart and life.

      Read and pray daily.

      It is for your life;

      There is no other way:

      Else you will be a trifler

      All your days.

      —John Wesley

      1. Prayer upon Awakening

      Prayer upon awakening has always been part of Christian devotion. We

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