Complete List of Paul's Prayers

The Scripture Zealot has compiled a complete list of Paul's prayers. The great thing about the list is that all you need to do is "mouse-over" the Scripture reference and the passage pops up. For longer passages you can click on "more" to see the entire text. I went through several of them and really enjoyed "thumbing" through Paul's prayers as I was once again reminded how often my prayers don't reflect many of the priorities of the Apostle Paul. Jeff has been providing a lot of quotes from D. A. Carson's book A Call to Spiritual Reformation: Priorities from Paul and His Prayers. It is one of the finest books on prayer that I've ever read. And it is eminently quotable. I'll give you this one in its longer context (my favorite part is in italics but is best understood by its context).

"For what do we commonly give thanks? We say grace at meals, thanking God for our food; we give thanks when we receive material blessings--when the mortgage we've applied for comes through, or when we first turn on the ignition in a car we've just purchased. We may sigh a prayer of sweaty thanks after a near miss on the highway; we may utter a prayer of sincere and fervent thanks when we recover from serious illness. We may actually offer brief thanksgiving when we hear that someone we know has recently been converted. But by and large, our thanksgiving seems to be tied rather tightly to our material well-being and comfort. The unvarnished truth is that what we most frequently give thanks for betrays what we most highly value. If a large percentage of our thanksgiving is for material prosperity, it is because we value material prosperity proportionately.

That is why, when we turn to Paul's thanksgivings, they may startle us; they may even seem alien, for they do not focus on what many of us habitually cherish. Paul gives thanks for signs of grace among Christians, among the Christians whom he is addressing." (40-41)