QUESTION: What are some prayers for men?
ANSWER:
Prayer for Fathers Creator God, thank You for creating me to share in the conception of life, and share in the responsibility of raising my children. I ask that You would help me as I train up my children to know You and love You. As I look to You as my Father, may I give Your love to my children. God, give me the compassion and tenderness my children need. Give me courage and strength to live according to Your guidance and wisdom. Help me correct them when needed and encourage them always. In Jesus’ name, amen.
Prayer for the Safety of Soldiers Almighty and eternal God, I pray for my brothers and sisters who are serving their country. Protect all who are serving our country in uniform as they complete their duties. Protect them with the shield of Your strength and keep them safe from all evil and harm. May the power of Your love enable them to return home in safety to those who love them. May they praise You for Your loving care. In Jesus’ name, amen.
Prayers for Leaders Father God, You are infinite and all-knowing. Please give me wisdom to be the leader You have called me to be — in my home and in business. There are many choices and sometimes I fall short. Give me guidance as I strive to be the leader You want me to be in my home, at my place of employment, and in the community in which I live. Help me to lead with integrity and be an example of You to others. I ask this through my Lord Jesus Christ, amen.
Prayers for Husbands God, thank You for my wife. She is a gift from You. Help me to be quick to forgive, ready to encourage, and always available to her. Give me guidance as I seek to meet her needs and be her leader. Help me be faithful to her in my mind, thoughts, and heart. Keep us focused on You as we go through trials and times of conflict. Help us to work out conflict in a way that honors You. I commit my marriage to You. In Jesus’ name, amen.
WHAT DO YOU THINK?
– We have all
sinned
and deserve God’s judgment.
God
, the Father, sent His only Son to satisfy that judgment for those who believe in Him.
Jesus
, the creator and eternal Son of God, who lived a sinless life, loves us so much that He
died
for our sins, taking the punishment that we deserve, was
buried
, and
rose from the dead
according to the
Bible
. If you truly believe and trust this in your heart, receiving Jesus alone as your
Savior
, declaring, “
Jesus is Lord
,” you will be saved from
judgment
and spend eternity with God in heaven.
What is your response?
Yes, today I am deciding to follow JesusYes, I am already a follower of JesusI still have questions
www.allaboutprayer.org
Use this prayer guide to help you pray for the youth and children in your community. As you pray for the youth and children in your community, focus on these areas:
Home
- Pray that God would bless each home with peace.
- Ask God to give parents wisdom in raising their children.
- Pray that parents would take a genuine interest in the spiritual welfare of their children.
- Consider doing a prayer walk in your neighborhood praying for each home that you pass.
- Use the scripture based prayers and simple change the references from school/campus to home.
Hangouts
Each community has places that are popular with youth and children, it could be community ball fields, skating rink, mall, fast foot, restaurants, skate board parks, parking lots, etc. Identify those places and pray for them on a regular basis. Unfortunately, it is as these places that young people often give in to negative peer pressure so ask God to help those young people be strong in the face of temptation and even persecution.
Businesses Pray for the businesses in your community that have influence over the lives of youth and children. Pray that God would bless those businesses that are in a position to have a positive influence on young people. Ask God to limit the influence of those businesses that would be negative influences.
Prayer Ideas for the Community:
- Do a prayer walk in your neighborhood asking God to bless the homes.
- Do a prayer walk in youth hangouts.
Check the resources page for pdf downloads of the various men’s prayer guides.
mensprayerforce.com
One-Minute Prayers for Men. By Hope Lyda. Eugene, Oregon: Harvest House Publishers, 2004/2010. 288 pp. Cloth. $9.99.
Do you have a tendency to struggle with communication, especially when it comes to talking with God in prayer? Do you ever find yourself too busy to pray? Hope Lyda, bestselling author of the popular One-Minute Prayers series, has penned a little prayer book for men, keeping these types of considerations in mind.
One-Minute Prayers for Men is neatly organized topically, covering a range of topics especially relevant to men including work, marriage, sexuality, temptation, communication and management, even a section on asking for directions. This book will serve as a prayer catalyst, providing a daily starting place for men and it only takes a minute to read through each day.
Not only does the book provide aid for a stifling prayer life, it more importantly centers upon praying the Word of God. Each daily entry contains a relevant topical Scripture and a simple expository prayer that is both contextual and practical for personal application. An index of the Scriptures utilized throughout would be useful, but was unfortunately omitted.
Regarding to the author’s soteriology especially in relation to the theology of justification, an entry on John 3:36 is most telling and refreshingly consistent with the Free Grace position:
Lord, I believe! I believe in You and I believe in Your Son. And for such a simple faith, You have given me eternal life. That eternal life is not something I will someday inherit, it’s mine right now and I rejoice in it. (p. 167)
However, the entry in response to a reading of Eph 2:8-9 is lackluster at best and missing exposition on the importance of faith alone in Christ alone for justification:
God, everything I have is from You. The faith I hold onto tightly is a gift of Your grace. If people see the peace and wholeness in my life, may I never claim responsibility for such things. I will share about Your mercy. I will share how Your love transformed me at a time when I could do nothing to help myself. My dependence on You should shine far brighter than my self-sufficiency. Let everything I do, say, accomplish, or receive praise for be a reflection of Your gift (p. 42).
Clearly, this book is written from the perspective and with the purpose of ministering directly to Christian men, not necessarily for evangelistic purposes. As such, none of the entries attempt to cast doubt on the reader’s salvation, but rather spur the reader on to a productive Christian life lived out daily and grounded upon the cornerstones of the Word of God and prayer.
Scott Larrison
Associate Controller
University of Tulsa
Tulsa, OK
faithalone.org
Devotion to Our Lady may not seem an intuitive thing for some Catholic men. Growing up, I’d occasionally catch my father as he finished praying the Rosary early on Saturday mornings (begun in peace when the rest of us were asleep), or notice he’d left his handsome set of beads lying out on a coffee table. I had the blessing of his example. Other men know their fathers have placed a Rosary in their locker at work (try and find a Catholic firefighter who doesn’t have either a Rosary or a saint’s medal) or even just keep one in their pocket, where from time to time they’ll pause and touch the beads. But for those men who haven’t “seen” or “heard,” how do we make sense of the Rosary as a manly devotion?
1. The Rosary is covert. A fierce point of intimidation of being a man of faith in our culture is the fear that we will amount to being hypocrites (and we know how much Jesus loved that…). In the face of our own weakness, we want to be authentic about who we are, what we’re capable of, and what we believe. Rather than broadcasting or projecting a false image of ourselves as mighty saints, men prefer to keep things on the down low. The problem is this principle of authenticity—which is truly noble—can be our undoing. When we’re not grounded in something solid, we’ll drift away. We’re not all called to some kind of grandiose witness, like martyrdom or preaching, but we do need to be faithful. The Rosary offers a structured program for building up the foundation of faith in our souls in secret, so that when the storms come our hearts will be strong enough to be true.
2. The Rosary arms us for spiritual warfare. The fact of the matter is that spiritual life is war (cf.CCC 2725). St. Paul puts it this way, “For we are not contending against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, against the powers, against the world rulers of this present darkness, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places” (Eph. 6:12). To contend in the battle, we must put on the armor of Light (Rom. 13:12)! Dominican friars wear the Rosary on the left side, the side which bore the sword for knights of old. In the battle of the spiritual life, prayer is the only weapon, and it must be used. Frequently. Unceasingly. Devotion to the Rosary reclaimed the life of the 19th-century Italian lawyer Bartolo Longo (who had become entrapped in the world of the occult and often dreamt of taking his own life), and without a doubt, devotion to the Rosary will help us overcome the evils which plague us. The temptations and cycles of sin of the 21st century do not own us, for the Rosary narrates the greatest conquest of all time: the victory of life and light over sin and death.
3. The Rosary sanctifies our contemplative side. Like fixing things around the house, solving crises at work or otherwise designing and building, men love to muse over problems. I’ve heard it said before that during time set aside for prayer people should clear their minds, so that they can be totally focused on God. That seems unnatural to me. It’s been my experience that God wants us to set before Him the mess and mud of our lives, not hide it from Him. This is the very glory of Christianity—the Incarnational principle—that God would condescend to our world and sanctify it, lift it up to Him. The mysteries of the Rosary lead us to think and reflect on the stuff of our lives, while simultaneously giving us an opportunity to hand our struggles over to the Lord. When we reflect on the mysteries of the Rosary, we join our lives to Christ’s. By praying the Rosary, God pierces the hardened shell of our hearts and opens up a place for Him. He will speak to us, to the problems of our own lives, through the Rosary.
4. Jesus says so. Ever since second-grade religion class, Jesus is usually the right answer. Without getting all theological, we can simply say: men should pray the Rosary because He told us to. From the Cross Jesus tells St. John, “Behold your Mother!” (Jn. 19:27). That command to “behold” is not St. John’s alone—it’s ours, too. To behold, to take in, to bask in, to be attentive to, to delight in: this is the command. Through Mary’s intercession at the Cross and in the Rosary, Jesus arranges that the treasury of graces associated with His Immaculate Mother may be opened to us and poured out on us. But we’re left to seek her, to behold her.
This post originally appeared at Dominicana. It is reprinted with permission.
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