Credit Anne Lamott with sparking good thoughts on prayer. In Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith, Lamott writes that the two best prayers she knows are "Help me, help me, help me" and "Thank you, thank you, thank you."

My wife Sandy's church (Inglewood Presbyterian Church, Bothell, Wash.) is having fun with that prayer. Sandy quoted Lamott's two best prayers and added a third prayer that Lamott mentioned in a subsequent article: "Wow!" - the prayer of awe. It's the prayer of praise, to use a more traditional term.

When I preached there recently - on mission, of course - I suggested a fourth basic prayer that Christians pray: "Yes" - the yes to God that says we will be his witnesses when and where he calls us and as we go about our daily lives. It's the yes that says we will use our resources, energy, time and relationships to follow his will. We say yes to God until he increases and we decrease.

So let me commend this simple set of basic prayers to you:

Dear Lord:
Help me, help me, help me.
Thank you, thank you, thank you.
Wow!
Yes.

-- Dave Hackett

Links:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0385496095/103-2039255-3055827?v=glance
http://www.inglewoodpc.org