Tell Out My Soul

Blessed are you Lord, our God, king of the universe…

When starting to pray, this ancient blessing is one that can be easily used as a preface to all prayer, whether the prayer is intended for praise, for petition, for contrition or just when we need to touch base and just be with God. It focuses us instantly on God, even when we don’t know how to start or where to start to pray. This should be an opening statement that is committed to memory so that it becomes automatic. Even when we’re in the middle of doing something and we feel the need to connect, these words will just flow out of us and then we can fill in the rest. These few words are great for starting the day and especially for ending the day, at night when we’re tired, and we close our eyes, and our last thoughts of our day turn to God.

Blessed are You, Lord our God, King of the universe, who brings sleep to my eyes, slumber to my eyelids. May it be Your will, Lord my God and God of my ancestors, that I lie down in peace and that I arise in peace. Let my sleep be undisturbed by troubling thoughts, bad dreams, and wicked schemes. May I have a night of tranquil slumber. May I awaken to the light of a new day, that my eyes may behold the splendor of Your light. Blessed are You, Lord whose glory gives light to the entire world.

This night time prayer is one that Jesus says in the series, The Chosen, a program which I highly recommend for an in depth and close up look at Christ’s mission. It’s a personal view but also universal and brings the world of Jesus into sharp focus. I fell in love with this prayer because it really brings me close to God when I close my eyes to sleep.

“Blessed are you Lord, our God, king of the universe,” reminds me of the address at the beginning of the Catholic Eucharistic prayer:

Blessed are you God, Lord of all creation, through your goodness we have this bread to offer, which earth has given and human hands have made. It will become for us the bread of life.

These few words announce our intention to pray, they praise God, and they state confidently that we belong to him. They pronounce God to be Lord and creator of everything and, in so doing, they instantly put our minds and hearts in the perfect place to approach our sovereign Lord. So it’s very worthwhile to memorise this brief phrase so that when we approach God in prayer, we instantly and confidently have the starter ready to begin the thread that pours our heart out to God; the rest just flows out from the well spring we have opened.

God bless!