222 Prayers

By Rick Hoover

Seeds for your prayer garden! Here are pages and pages of short prayers, one or two sentences long, to stir your own further prayers and intentions. A wonderful help to refresh your own prayer and devotional times. An encouraging, thoughtful gift for those facing their own daily struggles.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Pelican Wings
• Release date: Jul 28, 2016
• ISBN: 9781370268832

Rick Hoover

I'm a retired deacon in the Episcopal Church. I served at a parish in central Florida. I've worked in radio, television and several jobs that included public relation efforts. As a Christian, I have discovered one of the things I enjoy most is spending time in a prayer closet with Jesus, learning to be still so He has space to speak. I shared about my first month as a Smashword author at my blog:https://deaconrick.wordpress.com/2013/10/10/editing-the-author/

Book preview

222 Prayers

Seeds For Your Prayer Garden

by

Rick Hoover

Copyright © 2016 by Richard Hoover

E-book ISBN 9781370268832

Dedicated to my friends and fellow intercessors

in The Order of St. Luke the Physician

that I have prayed with in OSL chapters

in Illinois and Florida.

CONTENTS

Introduction

222 Prayers

About the Author

Introduction

The church where I was raised practiced and taught spontaneous prayer. A Christian was encouraged to speak to Jesus from their heart. We were not impressed by churches that prayed the same thing over and over each week. Where was the spontaneity in that?

It was not until many years later that I had reason to attend an actual liturgical service. To my surprise, the priest was shifting freely between the written liturgical prayers and his own candid, off the cuff prayers as he moved through the service. He was able to do both. Who knew?

When I joined a liturgy-oriented church myself a few years later, I made another discovery. In my own spontaneous prayer times, I realized I was often lifting up the same short list of concerns and never thinking of others that were just as important. The regular, standard list of prayers that we went over in the worship service acted as a helpful checklist to make sure I didn't forget some of these. It was a crutch, yes, but one I clearly needed.

I noticed a new problem some of my fellow worshippers in the liturgical tradition had. If they didn't have a prayer written out for them, they were hesitant to pray before a group of friends. (I don't know how they did in their prayer closets, if they prayed at all when alone.) They seemed afraid to pray from their heart, for fear they might not say things right.

I think it is good to be able to pray both ways, formally and informally, in public or in private. And it's not a bad thing to have a little help to get started. That's where I hope this collection of prayer seeds can serve you. I hope that they will prompt further prayers from your heart in the time you spend with the Lord.

When I taught classes on prayer, one of my favorite illustrations was the process