Daniel Fast

Day One: Pray for the Glory and Honor of God
Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy Kingdom come. Thy will be done. On earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil for thine is the Kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen
Your prayer:

Day Two: Pray for the Church of the Llving God
Lord, we thank thee for thou church in whose bosom we have learned thou word and heard thou voice and sang songs of Zion. May her light always be as a guiding light on the seas of life that leads all travelers safely home. Strengthen those who have been granted her safe keeping that the sacred trust may never be compromised, nor her witness tarnished by the imperfection of human fragility. You, Oh Lord, who have purchased her as a ransom bride, provide all that is needed in days of waiting so that upon your return the marriage celebration may take place with all who have found safety in her arms. Amen
Your prayer:

Day Three: Pray for the Spread of the Gospel
Lord, the world in which we live is in need of good news, news that tells us that there is cleansing from the past, confidence for the present and courage for the future available for all through the gospel of Jesus Christ. May that news spread in my home, my community, my country and around the world until the name of Jesus is spoken with confidence and conviction by every man, every woman, every boy and every girl. Give aid to all that labor to the spread of the gospel by the preaching and teaching of thou word or by delivery of scripture into the hands of those whose hands have never touched the holy pages that speak of such glad tidings. Amen
Your Prayer:

Day Four: Pray for the Unsaved
Lord, we know that it grieves your heart that there are men and women who have rejected the gift of salvation. Yet, your love continues to make itself known to them through acts of mercy and grace. May your spirit continue to move and witness in ways that the walls that separate them from all that you have in store for those that love you come tumbling down even as the walls of Jericho.
Your prayer:

Day Five: Pray for a Spirit Empowered Life
Lord, I am aware of the temptation within me to yield to the things that satisfy my flesh and bring no value to the kingdom of God. I know that Satan desires to sift me like wheat even as he did for Peter. Help me to aspire to the more noble things, the things that honor you, the things that give a good report, the things that are gracious, excellent and praise worthy. Help me to live under the control of the Spirit and to be led by the Spirit so that there will be a witness that the Spirit lives in me. Amen.
Your prayer:

Day Six: Pray for Discernment 
Lord, help me to know your will. Show me the way you expect me to go and the path for life that I am to choose. There is so much noise in the world around me it sometimes crowds out my ability to hear your voice. Make me ever sensitive to the things of God so that I will be able to discern what is of God and what is not. Let me not be deceived by forces that work against your kingdom nor deceived by the path of least resistance. Recall your word to my mind in the moments of need that might arise. For it is in hearing your word I hear your choice for me. Amen
Your prayer:

Day Seven: Pray for Rest
The Sabbath is a day, oh Lord, that you have made that we might know the joy of rest from labor. Let me not think that it is possible to work without rest and renewal. There is no duty, no demand and no difficulty that requires my constant attention without trusting you to keep everything in safe keeping. May I be able this day to disengage from all that draws my attention away from those who love me and desire time alone with me even as you desire time alone with us. Grant the rest that can only come when all the cares of life are cast before you. Remove the anxiety that can rob us of the rest we need and give us cooling water for our spirits that they may be refreshed in thee. 
Your prayer:

Day Eight: Pray for Healing
There is so much sickness in our world today, O Lord, and there are many that we know as well as those we do not know that are in need of a touch from you. We come to you this day on the behalf of others seeking your grace and mercy that may lead to recovery and restoration. As the countless came to you in the days of your flesh and you healed them all--the blind, lepers, cripple and the infirm--receive these we bring before you in prayer and may all receive touch that can make a difference. Honor your promise that the prayers of the righteous avail much. Amen
Your prayer:

Day Nine: Pray for Wisdom
You remind us, Lord, time and time again that your ways are not like our ways. Grant us the wisdom to lean upon you and trust you and not our own understanding. Help us to gain a wise heart so that the witness of wisdom may not be lost in a generation given to folly and that we might turn to the truth. Help us know how to build our lives on the things that will last so when the storms come that will surely come, wisdom would have built her house and the foundations would be secure. Amen
Your Prayer:

Day Ten: Pray for Hope
O Lord, it is difficult to be hopeful when things seem so bleak but the psalmist tells us to look unto the hills from whence our help comes. Grant us the ability to always look up even when weighted down by troubles and cares. May you, O Lord, tend to the flame of hope that was first lit upon the altars of our hearts when we heard your word and yielded to your spirit. Whereas the flame may become dim from time to time, guard so that it may never go out until it will no longer be needed because we will abide in perfect union with thee. Amen
Your prayer:

Day Eleven: Pray for Church Leaders and Missionaries around the World
Lord how grateful we are that there are still men and women that answer your call to serve your church. For those who continue to make untold sacrifices for the care of your people and labor at teaching them your way, we give thanks. Meet every need that may arise in their lives because of their service to thee. Help those who receive their care cherish them for their work's sake. May their number increase as you see fit so that there will always be someone to carry the gospel mantle and wear the shoes of peace of those who bring joy and glad tidings. Amen
Your prayer:

Day Twelve: Pray for Strength and Endurance
Oh Lord the Christian race is not one won by the swift or the strong but is won by those who endure until the end. Grant me now the endurance needed for whatever trial that may beset me. Your promise is that you will be with me always. My ancestors told me you would not put more on me than I could bear. So let me not lose heart in well doing but be faithful in all things concerning thee. Give me strength, Oh Lord. Give me Grace, Oh Lord. Give me the victory that can only come from endurance. Amen.
Your prayer:

Day Thirteen: Pray for Unity
Lord you said that the world would know we belong to you by our love and our unity. You prayed in the days of your flesh that we might be one. Help us to resist all the forces that would deprive us of the unity you prayed for and died to make possible. Sweep through the church with a new breeze of unity that binds us closer to one another and closer to you. Put down every faction that would lift itself up above you. Help us to let go of our craving for independence and help us see our need for each other and for you. Amen.
Your prayer:

Day Fourteen: Pray for Our Enemies
There may be nothing more radical, Oh Lord, that you call us to do than to pray for our enemies. Help us to see the way that leads to reconciliation is a path paved with prayer for our enemies. May you, Oh Lord, open their eyes and cause them to see the futility of their cause and the harm inflicted upon themselves. Break down the dividing wall that causes separation and let us each see the other as one whom Christ shed his blood for and calls us to be at peace with. Amen
Your prayer:

Day Fifteen: Pray for Everything
Oh Lord, for the privilege of prayer and telling you all that is on my heart, I am grateful. Hear now my longings, my hopes, my dreams, my aspirations, my desires. Bathe them all in your word so that my desires might always be holy. If it be necessary that they are altered or changed because of your will, help me to accept it and follow in the path that you lead. Bless all of those who are dear to me and those whose lives have helped to make my life better. Keep me ever longing for the home that you have prepared for them that love you and never forget my alien status in this world of grief and woe. May my love for you shine ever bright until I arrive in the city not made with hands. Amen
Your prayer:

We are now at the half-way point of the 30 days of prayer. The remaining prayers will be a collection of prayers from various Christian persons throughout time whose prayers are read constantly today as a source of encouragement and hope for the church today.



     

Day Sixteen: John Baillie - A Dairy of Private Prayers
Evening of the third day: O thou before whose eyes all human hearts lie bare and open, forbid that I should seek to hide from thee anything that I have done or thought or imagined. What must forever be hidden from knowledge of others, that let me now openly acknowledge in thy presence. What no proper shame kept me from committing, that let no false shame keep me now from confessing. O thou whose tender mercies are over all thy works, humbly and sorrowfully I crave thy forgiveness for the sins of this day; for every weakening and defiling thought to which my mind has given harbor; for every word spoken in hastiness or passion; for every failure of self control; for every stumbling block which by deed or example I have set in another’s way; for every opportunity lost; for every blessing thanklessly received; for loitering feet and a procrastinating will. Grant that as the days go by thy Spirit may more and more rule in my heart, giving me victory over these and all other sinful ways. To thou loving guard ship, O holy father, I commend all those dear to me. Bless all those among whom my lot is cast and grant them a satisfying sense of thy reality and power. Be with all those who tonight are in peril or distress. Be in every sore heart; in every stricken home; beside every bed of pain; giving to all the blessing of thy peace. Amen
Your prayer:

Day Seventeen: A Prayer About What To Do with My Life by Howard Thurman
Give me the courage to live! Really live not merely exist. Live dangerously, scorning risk, live honestly, daring the truth--particulary the truth about myself! Live resiliently- ever changing, ever growing, ever adapting. Enduring the change of pain as though it were the travail of birth. Give me the courage to live, give me the strength to be free and endure the burden of freedom and the loneliness of those without chains; let me not be trapped by success nor by failure, nor by pleasure, nor by grief, nor by malice, nor by praise, nor by remorse! Give me the courage to go on! Facing all that waits on the trail-going eagerly, joyously on and paying my way as I go without anger or fear or regret taking what life gives spending myself to the full, head high, spirit winged, like a god on and on till the shadow draws close. Then even when darkness shuts down and I go out alone as I came naked and blind as I came even then gracious God hear my prayer: give me the courage to live. Amen
Your prayer:

Day Eighteen: A Prayer by Thomas Merton
Our hearts are heavens and our eyes are light years deep, sounding your will, your peace, in its unbounded fathoms: Oh balance all our turning orbits, till that morning upon the center and level of your holy love: then lock our souls forever in the nucleus of its law. Amen
Your prayer:

Day Nineteen: A Prayer from the Negro God by Benjamin Mays
Oh Father you are a good God, because some are lying on their beds of affliction, some are behind prison bars, some are in hospitals and some are sleeping in their graves; yet we have been wonderfully blessed with health. Amen
Your prayer:

Day Twenty: A Prayer by Peter Marshall - The Cry of the Human Heart
Lord Jesus, thou knowest the things that are trembling upon our lips, stirring in our hearts and along the corridors of our souls, walking on tiptoes across the cloistered spaces of our consciousness, conforming to the distant pealing of an angelus, looking expectantly upward, making prayers without words, breathing aspirations that have only wings. Hear us we pray thee as we call upon thee for help, for strength, for peace, for grace, for reassurance, for companionship, for love, for pardon, for health, for salvation, and for joy. Hear us, Lord Jesus. Amen
Your prayer:

Day Twenty One: A Prayer by Saint Augustine
Come O Lord in much mercy down into my soul and take possession and dwell there. A homely mansion, I confess for so glorious a Majesty, but such as thou are fitting up for the reception of thee, by holy and fervent desires of thine own inspiring. Enter then and adorn and make it such as thou canst inhabit since it is the work of thy hands. Give me thine own self, without which, though, thou shouldst give me all that ever thou hast made, yet could not my desire be satisfied. Let my soul ever seek thee and let me persist in seeking, till I have found and am in full possession of thee. Amen.
Your prayer

Day Twenty Two: A Prayer from God’s Minute Book 365 Daily Devotions and Prayers for Family and Home Worship by H. W. Crews
Our father in heaven we praise thee for the mercy seat to which we can come and before which thou art so pleased to have us bow. Help us to approach it with pure hearts and with sincere motives. Teach us our need of thee. Show us how dangerous it is to live without the consciousness of thou presence. Walk with us as Jesus walked with his two companions to Emmaus. Help us to commune with thee as friend with friend. Prevent us from willful sin. Subdue our heart’s rebellion and keep us at peace with thee. Help us to be patient and sympathetic with all who may need our help. If we have wronged anyone give us the grace of repentance and confession. If any have injured us, enable us to forgive and forget. Bless our home and all who are dear to us by the ties of kinship and friendship. Inspire and strengthen us so that we will be able to glorify thee in home, in school, in the factory, or shop. Forgive us wherein we may in any way have grieved thee and aid us in our efforts to avoid the mistakes of yesterday. Our prayer is in the name of him who loved us and gave his life to save us. Amen
Your prayer:

Day Twenty Three: A Prayer for Gratitude by John F. Kennedy Thanksgiving Day 1963
Let us therefore proclaim our gratitude to Providence for the manifold blessings. Let us be humbly thankful for the inherent ideals and let us resolve to share those blessings and those ideals with our fellow human beings throughout the world. On that day let us gather in sanctuaries dedicated to worship and in homes blessed by family affection to express our gratitude for the glorious gifts of God and let us earnestly and humbly pray that he will continue to guide and sustain us in the great unfinished task of achieving peace, justice, and understanding among all men and nations and of ending misery and suffering wherever they exist. Amen
Your prayer:

Day Twenty Four: General Patton’s Prayer at Bastogne
Almighty and most merciful father we humbly beseech thee of thy great goodness to restrain these immoderate rains with which we have had to contend. Grant us fair weather for battle. Graciously hearken to us as soldiers who call upon thee that armed with thy power we may advance from victory to victory and crush the oppression and wickedness of our enemies and establish thy justice among men and nations.
Your prayer:

Day Twenty Five: A Prayer by C.T.Vivian Before His Arrest in Albany,GA, During the Civil Rights Movement.
We ask O Lord your blessings upon us and your safekeeping of us as we go into jails that have misused us as we go into jails where men have been beaten, where the waters have been placed upon the floors, where there has been no heat. Keep us from illness, keep us from the brutality of this official. Amen
Your prayer:

Day Twenty Six: A Child’s Prayer Author Unknown
Lord Jesus I thank you for the gift of this new day. When you came to earth for us you grew as a child in wisdom and grace. As Lord you received children in your arms. You blessed them and said that your kingdom belongs to them. Dear Jesus receive me also on this day and hear my prayer. Bless my parents, teachers, and all those who love and care for me. Keep me safe from danger and guide me to be truthful, honest, kind and helpful. Amen
Your prayer:

Day Twenty Seven: A Prayer by Rev. P. H. Balasbaugh
Our father worthy of all honor and praise and whom we desire to worship in spirit and in truth help us humbly come to thee in prayer in this quite hour. May thy hand that hovered over us during the past night with protecting care and measured to us the rich blessing of peaceful slumber and refreshing rest, now guide our feet to the duties of the day and there shield us from harm. There give us thy spirit of love and tenderness, thy grace to sustain us in temptation and travail, thy presence by thy spirit to help us in all we may do. Dwell in this home ever. Lead us on to glorify thee in all things until at last life’s duties are finished, received us thyself above. Amen
Your prayer

Day Twenty Eight: A Prayer for Peace by Abraham Lincoln
Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet if God wills that it continues until every drop of blood drawn from the lash shall be paid another drawn with the sword so still it must be said that the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether. With malice toward none with charity for all with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for the widow and for his orphans, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and a lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations. 
Your prayer:

Day Twenty Nine: A Prayer by W.E.B. Dubois
Give us grace O God to dare to do the deed which we well know cries to be done. Let us not hesitate because of ease or the words of men’s mouth or our own. Mighty causes are calling us the freeing of women, the training of children, the putting down of hate and murder and poverty all of these and more. But they call with the voices that mean work and sacrifice and death. Mercifully grant us O God the spirit of Esther that we say I will go unto the king and if I perish I perish. Amen
Your prayer:

Day Thirty: A Prayer by Mary McLeod Bethune
Father we call thee father because we love thee. We are glad to be called thy children and to dedicate our lives to the service that extends through the willing hearts and open hands to the betterment of all of mankind. We send a cry of thanksgiving for people of all races, creeds, classes and colors the world over, and pray that through the instrumentality of our lives the spirit of peace, joy, fellowship and brotherhood shall circle the world. We know that this world is filled with discordant notes, but help us father to so unite our efforts that we may all join in one harmonious symphony for peace and brotherhood, justice, and equality of opportunity for all men. The tasks performed today with forgiveness for all our errors we dedicate, dear Lord, to thee. Grant us strength and courage and faith and humility sufficient for the task assigned to us. Amen
Your prayer: