Process Spirituality

The following is a modified version of a prayer by John Stott, an Anglican theologian from the 20th century.

Let’s look at what he is praying to each of the Trinity, and discover what this prayer can lead us to understand better about each of them. 

Heavenly Father, I pray that I would worship you as creator and sustainer. I pray that I would stay in your presence and be pleasing to you more and more each day.

Lord Jesus, I pray that I would worship you as lord, savior, and redeemer. I pray that I would take up my cross and follow you each day.

Holy Spirit, I pray that I would worship you as sanctifier, and that you would fill me with your spirit and cause your fruit to ripen in my life–your fruit of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness and self–control. 

Heavenly Father as creator: Do I acknowledge God the Father as creator of all things? How can I worship him as this–how can I be mindful of his unique ability to call things into existence?

1. John 1:3 The Life-Light 1 1-2 The Word was first, the Word present to God, God present to the Word. The Word was God, in readiness for God from day one. 3-5 Everything was created through him;  nothing—not one thing!—came into being without him. What came into existence was Life, and the Life was Light to live by. The Life-Light blazed out of the darkness;  the darkness couldn’t put it out.

2. Job 12:7-10 “But ask the animals what they think,  let them teach you;  let the birds tell you what’s going on. Put your ear to the earth—learn the basics. Listen—the fish in the ocean will tell you their stories. Isn’t it clear that they all know and agree  that God is sovereign, that he holds all things in his hand—Every living soul, yes, every breathing creature? Isn’t this all just common sense, as common as the sense of taste? Do you think the elderly have a corner on wisdom, that you have to grow old before you understand life?

3. Romans 1:20 But the basic reality of God is plain enough. Open your eyes and there it is! By taking a long and thoughtful look at what God has created, people have always been able to see what their eyes as such can’t see: eternal power, for instance, and the mystery of his divine being. So nobody has a good excuse. What happened was this: People knew God perfectly well, but when they didn’t treat him like God, refusing to worship him, they trivialized themselves into silliness and confusion so that there was neither sense nor direction left in their lives. They pretended to know it all, but were illiterate regarding life. They traded the glory of God who holds the whole world in his hands for cheap figurines you can buy at any roadside stand.

4. Psalm 95:4-5 In His hand are the deep places of the earth; The heights of the hills are His also. The sea is His, for He made it; And His hands formed the dry land. 

5. Hebrews 11:3 By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God’s command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible. 

6. Psalm 104:24-25 What a wildly wonderful world, God!   You made it all, with Wisdom at your side, made earth overflow with your wonderful creations. Oh, look—the deep, wide sea,  brimming with fish past counting, sardines and sharks and salmon. Ships plow those waters, and Leviathan, your pet dragon, romps in them. All the creatures look expectantly to you to give them their meals on time. You come, and they gather around;  you open your hand and they eat from it. If you turned your back, they’d die in a minute—Take back your Spirit and they die, revert to original mud; Send out your Spirit and they spring to life— the whole countryside in bloom and blossom.

 

Heavenly Father as sustainer: Do I worship God as the sustainer of things in my life–or in the world–do I commit to praising Him for maintaining and enlivening every aspect of my life, and the lives of those I love, and the seemingly infinite number of interactions that keep us alive, our world, and the universe in motion? 

1. Nehemiah 9:21 For forty years you sustained them in the wilderness; they lacked nothing, their clothes did not wear out nor did their feet become swollen.
2. Job 36:19 Would your wealth or even all your mighty efforts sustain you so you would not be in distress?
3. Psalm 3:5 I lie down and sleep; I wake again, because the Lord sustains me. You make your saving help my shield, and your right hand sustains me; your help has made me great.
4. Psalm 41:3 The Lord sustains them on their sickbed and restores them from their bed of illness.I
5. Psalm 51:12 Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.
6. Psalm 54:4 Surely God is my help; the Lord is the one who sustains me.
7. Psalm 55:22 Cast your cares on the Lord and he will sustain you; he will never let the righteous be shaken.
8. Psalm 89:21 My hand will sustain him; surely my arm will strengthen him.
9. Psalm 119:175 Let me live that I may praise you, and may your laws sustain me.
10. Psalm 146:9 The Lord watches over the foreigner and sustains the fatherless and the widow, but he frustrates the ways of the wicked.
11. Psalm 147:6 The Lord sustains the humble but casts the wicked to the ground.
12. Isaiah 46:4 Even to your old age and gray hairs I am he, I am he who will sustain you. I have made you and I will carry you; I will sustain you and I will rescue you.
13. Isaiah 50:4 The Sovereign Lord has given me a well-instructed tongue, to know the word that sustains the weary. He wakens me morning by morning, wakens my ear to listen like one being instructed.
14. Hebrews 1:3 The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word. After he had provided purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven.