A prayer for starting the day in God's presence — based on Psalm 5, Psalm 90, and the Lord's Prayer.
Father, this day is yours. Walk with me through it. Use me for your kingdom. Keep those I love. In Jesus' name, Amen.
Pray this prayer first thing in the morning — before email, before the news, before the demands of the day arrive. Even five minutes of morning prayer reshapes the day. Pair it with a brief Scripture reading (Psalms work especially well in the morning) and a moment of silence.
Christian morning prayer has been the bedrock of daily spiritual life for over 2,000 years. The Hebrew Psalms repeatedly assume morning prayer as the daily pattern (Psalm 5:3 — 'In the morning, O LORD, you hear my voice; in the morning I prepare a sacrifice for you and watch'; Psalm 88:13 — 'In the morning my prayer comes before you'). Jesus himself rose early to pray (Mark 1:35 — 'And rising very early in the morning, while it was still dark, he departed and went out to a desolate place, and there he prayed'). The pattern of starting the day with God is not optional spiritual extra but the practical foundation of Christian discipleship. Three elements traditionally make up morning prayer: worship (acknowledging God's character before bringing requests), surrender (giving the day to God before the day's demands arrive), and intercession (praying for others before being consumed by self). Lamentations 3:22-23 grounds it theologically: God's mercies 'are new every morning.' The believer wakes not into the leftovers of yesterday's grace but into fresh provision for the new day.
“O LORD, in the morning you hear my voice; in the morning I prepare a sacrifice for you and watch.”
“And rising very early in the morning, while it was still dark, he departed and went out to a desolate place, and there he prayed.”
Jesus' practice of morning prayer.
“The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.”
“Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love, that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.”
“Let me hear in the morning of your steadfast love, for in you I trust.”
Three elements work well together: read one Psalm (the Psalms are designed for daily prayer); pray three things — thanks for the gift of the new day, commitment of the day to God, intercession for someone you love; and sit briefly in silence. Even five minutes done daily reshapes life more than an hour done occasionally. The pattern works in any tradition: Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox. The key is consistency over depth.
Lamentations 3:22-23 ('The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness') is the foundational morning text. Psalm 5:3, Psalm 90:14, Psalm 143:8, and Mark 1:35 (Jesus's own practice of early-morning prayer) are also key. For starting the day with one verse, Psalm 118:24 — 'This is the day that the LORD has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it' — is hard to beat.
Yes — Mark 1:35 specifically records: 'And rising very early in the morning, while it was still dark, he departed and went out to a desolate place, and there he prayed.' This was Jesus's pattern, not an isolated incident. Luke 5:16 — 'But he would withdraw to desolate places and pray.' If the Son of God himself needed morning prayer to start his ministry days, it is presumably essential for his followers.
Three reasons: (1) Timing. Morning prayer happens before the demands of the day take over. Once email is open and conversations have begun, prayer competes with everything else. Morning is the only time of day that is fully under your control. (2) Theology. Christian discipleship is a daily walk — and walks start at the beginning. Morning prayer sets the orientation of the entire day. (3) Pattern. Scripture's pattern — Psalms, Jesus's example, the monastic tradition, Lamentations 3 — consistently locates the first prayer of the day at its beginning, not its middle or end.