Morning and Evening Prayers (Cornelius Plantinga) - A Review

MORNING AND EVENING PRAYERS. By Cornelius Plantinga. Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2021. Ix + 128 pages.

                Many Christians begin each day with prayer and end each day with the same. They may choose to pray more often than this, but it is their daily practice that bookends each day. While God hears prayers of all kinds, both extemporaneous and written, having a guide to daily prayer can be of assistance in one’s faith journey. Such prayers may not speak to the specifics of the day, but over time they will cover most areas of concern as well as help focus one’s attention on God and not just on one’s self.  Over the centuries prayer books like this have been created and new ones are emerging all the time. The question is, which one is best for one’s purposes? That really is an individual concern that no one, least of all me, can do for another. But, I can share a word about new possibilities, and such is the case with Cornelius Plantinga’s Morning and Evening Prayers.

                The author, Cornelius Plantinga Jr., is a Senior Research Fellow at the Calvin Institute of Christian Worship. He is also the former president of Calvin Theological Seminary (Grand Rapids, Michigan), an institution at which he also served as a professor of theology. He also served as Dean of the Chapel at Calvin University. He is the author of several books, including Reading for Preaching: The Preacher in Conversation with Storytellers, Biographers, Poets, and Journalists (Eerdmans).  

                Plantinga’s Morning and Evening Prayers is composed of thirty-one daily sets of prayers, with a morning and an evening prayer provided for each day. He also provides an additional prayer that is appropriately titled "A Sunday Prayer." Plantinga writes in his introduction that he has often turned to prayers written by others to assist him in his own daily prayers. These prayers include psalms and hymns and books of prayers. One book that he mentions as being especially valuable to him is John Baillie's A Diary of Private Prayer, which like this collection provides morning and evening prayers for use over a month’s time. Now, as for why he created this book of prayers, he acknowledges the encouragement of his colleagues at the Calvin Institute of Christian Worship—John Whitvliet, Kathy Smith, and Kristen Verhulst.

                Plantinga offers four reasons for using published prayers. First of all, they help jog him out of his rut. Second, he uses them because his spiritual life occasionally flags. He writes that "doubts nag at me. Energy fails me. Spiritual depression drags on me." I think we can all identify with this reason. Thirdly, he notes that at times trauma can silence our prayers. Thus, "how wonderful, then, that others keep right on praying for us and that we can silently join them." (p. Fourth, he suggests that "certain forms of prayer cry out for company." They're not meant to be prayed alone. (p. viii). So, having been encouraged to share his own prayers, he offers this month of prayers. Some use the first-person singular (I) to signify a more intimate prayer and others use the first-person plural to enable prayer to be understood communally. The margins are wide, so there is room to write down notes, a piece of scripture, whatever is needed for the journey of prayer.

                It would be difficult to describe in any detail what his prayers look like, so I will share one of the prayers so you, the reader, can experience one.

                This is the Evening Prayer for the twenty-first day.

                Loving God, defender of the weak and rescuer of the lost—you saved m. I was cast down and you raised me up. I was at loose ends and you knitted me whole. I was a stranger and you befriended me.

                You have cinched your people into union with Jesus Christ your Son.

                Nobody can break this bond.

                Nobody can pry us apart.

                Nothing can tear us from our Savior’s grip.

                Great God, spinner of galaxies, you love us.

                You greet us with words of welcome.

                You nourish us with good food.

                You embrace us as your own.

                We are your children, and you treat us as belonging to you.

                Throughout history your people have cried to you in their distress. They were in bondage, and they cried to you. They were wandering in the wilderness, and they cried to you. They were desolate in exile, and they cried to you. They were desolate in exile, and they cried to you. We cry to you now for all the slaves in the world, for all the wanderers, for all who are exiled from home. Remember your mercy in these trying days.

                 Lord Jesus Christ, comforter of the weary, give us rest. We are sick and tired, and sick and tired of being tired. Give us rest. We have worn ourselves out on trivial things and exhausted ourselves with perishing things.

                Lord Jesus Christ, savior of the nations, you were willing to suffer that we might be healed. You did not hold yourself aloof from human misery but took the worst of it to yourself. You did not let the cup of sorrow pass but drank it down. We give you humble thanks that you did all this for us, your weary ones.

                You have triumphed over the shades of night, rise above our sorrows. Rise above every bad memory and crumbling hope. Sun of righteousness, arise, and make your resurrection the magnet for ours.

                Before I go to sleep, I give myself into your keeping.

Amen.

                We are all different and the prayers that speak to one or give voice to one’s prayers will vary depending on the person. The fact that there is an abundance of such resources means most of us will find something that will carry our prayers to God. I believe that many Christians will find these prayers as written by Cornelius Plantinga to be of value. As for me, I found the prayers in Morning and Evening Prayers to be deeply thought out, relevant, and open to new possibilities. Plantinga is Reformed in his theology (he’s connected with Calvin University after all) but I think that Christians of all types will find this to be a helpful and useful guide to prayer.