According to my calculations, I’ve consumed 79,000 meals over the course of my life. Only a few are truly memorable: my first meal served by my future mother-in-law, the dinner where we learned of our daughter’s engagement, and dining at Wendy’s to satisfy our son’s craving for American fast food after a year in Italy. Whether or not I can remember a meal, all of them share one thing in common: they fed me. The same principle applies to the practice of daily prayer. While only a few mornings are memorable in the routine of daily prayer, they all nourish my soul.
As I read prayers from the past, I’m struck by the surprising number of pastors from earlier eras who prepared daily devotions for their people. Praying their prayers, such as we’re doing in Prayers from the Cloud, has deepened my connection with God and heightened my appreciation for our “great cloud of witnesses” (Heb. 12.1).
In 1728, John Frederick Starck (1680-1756) published a Handbook in Good and Evil Days. This otherwise obscure pastor from Germany wrote daily meditations on Scripture and composed hymns and prayers to accompany them. His prayers address most every life circumstance. In addition to morning and evening prayers, he wrote prayers for people in times of war, pestilence, drought, fire, and flooding, before and after a thunderstorm or going on a journey. Today’s prayer was intended to be prayed during times of affliction: