For what should I pray?

For what should we pray regarding our lives in sport? For what can I pray in good conscience and expect that the Lord Jesus may answer? For what would we be totally foolish to pray? For what do coaches and competitors ask you to pray? I will make some suggestions about these matters and I’d love to hear from some thoughts you.

 

As I was thinking about this earlier today, I thought I’d list the prayer items in some categories as below.

 

Prayers of Thanksgiving:

• Thank God for coaches, athletes, team administration, support staff and other people related to the team.

• Thank God for the sport itself, its best attributes, and its virtues.

• Thank God for the privilege to compete in sport.

• Thank God for the opportunity we have to represent Him in the world of sport as both prophet and priest to this community.

 

Prayers of Consecration:

• Dedicate this day’s training, practice or competition to God’s purposes.

• Dedicate your passionate love for sport to the fulfillment of God’s purposes.

• Consecrate your body, mind and spirit to honoring Christ as you train, compete or practice.

• Dedicate the relationships with people to the pursuit of God’s purposes.

• Dedicate the timing for career changes, transitions and more to God’s care in times of uncertainty and insecurity.

 

Prayers of Confession:

• Confess your occasional lack of perspective related to the importance of your team’s success to the fulfillment of God’s will.

• Confess your inability to make significant changes in people’s lives independent of God’s grace and power.

• Confess the Lord’s super-ability to accomplish His purposes in the lives of sportspeople, possibly even through you.

• Confess sin when your overly competitive flesh overtakes your heart in speech, anger or gesture.

 

Prayers of Intercession:

• Pray for your team, each and all, to compete at their absolute best.

• Pray for the coaches to have wisdom and insight related to leadership, strategy and motivation.

• Pray for them all to have a sense of the Lord’s presence and pleasure with them as they train, practice or compete.

• Pray for the officials to arbiter the sport in a way that both protects the competitors and honors the sport.

• Pray for your opponents to compete honorably and safely.

• Pray for all those involved in the sport to experience the best that it has to offer.

 

You may have noticed, I never pray for wins. You can ask me about why if you like. Here’s the bottom line: Pray for and with the people of sport. When you do, you engage their hearts with the Lord of Heaven, the omnipotent Creator of the Universe and we are all enriched in the process.