Book Review: Every Season Prayers by Scotty Smith

Scotty Smith is known for his blog, Heavenward, which are mostly prayers throughout the whole year for different circumstances. Some of these prayers have been the focus of a daily devotion he wrote called, Everyday Prayers: 365 Days to a Gospel-Centered Faith. Smith returns with another book on prayer, but instead of focusing on every day of the year, this book focuses on different seasons in one's life. The book is called, Every Season Prayers: Gospel-Centered Prayers for the Whole of Life.

Smith makes it clear that this book is a guide for the Christian to pray. He did not write this book to do the praying for the Christian. There are different sorts of prayers. Some of them fit for certain occasions such as aging, getting irritable, or when life is just messy. Other prayers include getting the gospel to the nations as well as to our hearts.

There are also some short prayers for spouses, children, and even times of thankfulness. There is even a whole section of prayer during the season of Advent and when we face our daily struggles. Most of the prayers in this book has passages of scripture to serve as an introduction to the prayer before the reader reads them.

If you are looking for a book on prayer during different seasons of life, I am delighted to recommend Every Season Prayers to your library.

Thanks Baker Publishing Group for letting me review this book.

Gospel Prayer

Scotty Smith shares how to pray in light of the gospel.

A Prayer for Maundy Thursday

Scotty Smith:

Now before Feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart out of this world to the Father, having loved his own who were in the world, he now showed them the full extent of his love. (John 13:1) A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another. (John 13:34-35)

Dear Lord Jesus, as I meditate and pray my way through these Scriptures, my heart is stunned, silenced and left in awe. What but the gift of faith can enable us to grasp the wonder of these words and the magnificence of this moment? What but the power of the gospel can free us, to believe and obey them? Grant us both, I pray, grant me both.

On our Holy Week calendar we call today Maundy, or “Mandate” Thursday. It’s a day in the history of redemption brimming over with glory and grace. Passover will soon become the Lord’s Supper—your supper. The promises of the Old Covenant are about to be fulfilled by the blood of the New Covenant—your life given as a ransom for us on the cross.

Having shared eternal glory with the Father, you now show measureless grace to your disciples. Having loved this ragtag bunch of broken men—who vied for positions of honor a few hours earlier (Mk. 10:35-45), and who would all scatter and deny you later that same evening—having loved them so well, you now show them the full extent of your love.

Your disrobing to wash their feet was with a full view to your being stripped naked to wash their hearts, and our hearts. What wondrous love is this indeed! How wide, long, high, and deep! (Eph. 3:14-19)

“Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another” (John 13:34). This is the new and never-ending mandate you’ve given us as your disciples. The most obvious expression of our “getting” the gospel is our loving others as you have loved, and do love, us. Jesus, fill my heart with an even greater knowledge of your love, that I may love others, more spontaneously, sacrificially, and joyfully. So very Amen I pray, in your triumphant and tender name.

9-11 Prayer

Scotty Smith:

Dear Lord Jesus, it’s the day on our calendars that has its own dark branding, “9/11.” There have been many days in history which stand out as graphic reminders of the pervasive brokenness of the world—of just how far we have fallen and just how fully the peace of creation has been violated by sin and death. But in my lifetime, no day in American history tells that story more clearly than September 11, 2001.

I’ll never forget how it felt watching the twin towers of the World Trade Center crumble to the earth—the morning of my wife’s 50th birthday. It was chilling, frightful, and surreal. But as I remember that day of terror and trauma, I also choose to remember you, Lord Jesus. Otherwise I would drift towards self-centered despair, nationalistic rage, or worse, a numbing indifference.

Lord Jesus, that day didn’t take you by surprise, catch you off guard or put you on notice. You were just as sovereign that day as the day you created the universe, as the day you died in our place on the cross, as the day you were raised from the dead. You are the Prince of Peace—the archetypal Peacemaker, the destroyer of hostilities and reconciler of enemies. You are the one who has come to make all things new, to restore broken things, to bring new creation delight from old creation decay.

Jesus, your death on the cross was the ultimate sowing of peace. As you died, taking the judgment we deserve, you were planted as the very seed which has secured an eternal harvest of righteousness. Your death was the death of death itself and the promise of eternal shalom.

Because of you, terror is terrified. Indeed, because of you, one day there will be no terror or tears. There will be no more brokenness or barrenness, no more heartaches or even heartburn, no more human trafficking or even human tooth decay, no more war or even aggravation, no more evil or even envy, no more poverty or even pouting, and no more “not yet,” “not enough,” or “not now.”

Our labors in you, King Jesus, are not in vain. Because of you we can, and must, live as peacemakers, sowing the peace of the gospel of the kingdom, with the absolute assurance that a harvest of righteousness is being raised and will be reaped.

We praise and adore you, for your name is Redeemer, Reconciler, and Restorer. We cry out loud, “Maranatha!” Come, Lord Jesus, come! Give us all the mercy, grace, and peace we need for this day, as we labor and wait for that Day. So very Amen we pray, with kingdom joy and great hope.

This prayer is also featured in Scotty's book, Everyday Prayers