David's Prayer: Communicating Our Prayers and Plans to God
By Dr. David Hilton Dyson
David is a teacher and founder of Dyson Institute, which sponsors the Plan for Life Ministry, Personal Leadership Association, Academy for Life Leadership, and Leadership Education and Development, programs that help people and organizations fulfill their callings.

Editor's note: Dr. David Dyson tells how writing his prayer helps him gain epiphany. He cites several sources of scripture calling each of us to have a plan for life. David references The Prayer of Jabez, which inspired many people to recite regularly the prayer of one man to God with inspiring results. David puts these sources of wisdom and examples into practice by writing his own prayer that helps him communicate with God with greater clarity, discern personal callings, and internalize choices for a better life.

David believes the process of prayer and the product of written prayer and a plan for life have helped him with epiphany to develop higher levels of insight and inspiration. He acknowledges his imperfections and continual need for growth but he also affirms that he thinks and acts better according to God's purpose because of this written prayer and plans. David offers us a copy of his prayer as a sample to consider in order to develop our own prayers.

Scripture Calls Us to Plan for Life

"As a man thinketh, so he is…"
Proverbs 23: 6-8

"Where there is no vision, the people perish…."
Proverbs 19:18

"Write the vision; make it plain on tablets so that a runner may read it."
Habakkuk 2:2

"The human mind plans the way, but the Lord directs the steps."
Proverbs 16:9

"...all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose."
Romans 8:28

"For surely I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for your welfare…to give you a future with hope. Then when you call upon me and come and pray to me, I will hear you…; if you seek me with all your heart, I will let you find me…."
Jeremiah 29:11-14

Times of Epiphany and Growth in Inspiration and Guidance

Insights and inspiration from my plan for life have included times of epiphany as well as daily reminders of what my best-self should think and do. During two summers as a college student, I sold Bibles door-to-door out of state. My initial motivation was to earn money for school and a car, do something challenging that would help me in life, and contribute meaningfully to people.

Business and personal development training, biblical lessons, studying works from Andrew Carnegie and Dr. Napoleon Hill, and the experience of working 70 hours per week knocking on doors gave me increased insight into the common denominators of doing our best. I saw people who seemed to possess the most potential quit after two days. Yet, some "ordinary people" persisted to succeed at putting Bibles in many homes plus earn money for college. This helped me see first-hand the value of identifying and internalizing our callings, goals, and commitments. Those who had a reason for succeeding were more likely to follow through.

Years later, a college student revealed that she had a low level of commitment and confidence about life and school. My "previous self" may have tried to "motivate her." This new level of belief helped me to slow down and encourage her to write a short description of her vision for herself, identify the key barrier, and a strategy for how her best-self would think and behave to develop an inspired level of commitment. She had a breakthrough. The barrier still existed though she had a plan for working through it that gave her hope and confidence rather than continue in a pattern that would have hindered her ability to achieve and serve.

Sometimes, people wait to start until they have a desired destination that inspires them when usually it is better to get started on the process of discerning callings, gifts, and talents that will inspire and guide us. Unfortunately, this same type of thinking carries over to thoughts in work life for some who utter phrases like "when I find a job I like, then I will be motivated and do a good job." The lower level of inspiration and performance usually produces reduced results and opportunities. The responsibility for choosing to seek our callings that inspire us, and to choose to write and internalize them rests with us.

Praying moment to moment and when the need arises has great merit, but writing our prayers is spiritual and logical. I believe that this practice will become commonplace for people and that spiritual leaders will increasingly do and teach this.

In The Prayer of Jabez: Breaking Through to the Blessed Life, author Bruce Wilkinson describes a short prayer that "revolutionized [his] life" by reading and affirming it regularly. This new epiphany taught me that I should write my prayer summarizing my praises, callings and requests.

The next level of my plan for life came when I wrote one page, my main prayer, that includes with greater clarity that which I affirm and seek of God and myself.

The prayer that follows is still a work in progress. This is the first time I have shared this for publication. I do so to provide an example and encouragement for every person to write a plan for life, including a prayer for life that can hold a key to the highest possible level of understanding for our callings and implementation of our choices.

I have learned and discerned that my main professional calling is to help people, families, and organizations plan and lead their lives. I have gained insight about my highest callings through developing my prayer and plan for life.

David's Prayer

God, thank you for the blessings of life and love. I believe that the universal purpose of life includes: To live a spiritual journey-faithfully (love God with all my heart, mind, strength, and spirit…); Love and serve others--meaningfully (Do unto others as I would have them do unto me…); And do my best-joyously (Discover, develop, and devote myself to fulfillment of my callings, gifts, and talents). I believe you have called me to leave a legacy that improves and unites our world. I choose to accept your callings and make it my life purpose to love and serve you, your children, and the talents entrusted to me. I believe in you as the source of life and love as well as spirituality and science. You are the source of natural law providing principles against which our best practices and behaviors must align. Please help me understand and live according to your callings and laws. Draw me to live a spiritual journey faithfully connected to you. Bless me with greater capacity for spirituality, love, service and stewardship. Mold me into a deserving example of your goodness. Guide me to discover my callings and to increasingly make inspired choices to fulfill them. Inspire and guide me to stewardship of my gifts, talents, and resources. Expand my territories and capacities to serve others with inspiration and effectiveness to help them with their callings and abundance. Give me strength to stay immersed in good, minimize sin, and avoid evil-knowing when to accept, when to fight, when to merely choose a different path, and when to stand strong and stay the course. Grow my strength of character and compassion to love and serve others meaningfully. Help me serve and lead-caring with a tender servant's heart, a wise mind, a teacher's soul, a strong body, and a leader's charisma. Show me how to help people understand the higher level teachings you have revealed to me so more of your children can do their best and live on common ground with one another. Help me attract, love and serve my soul mate, the one with whom I can share the journey of life as well as partnership to expand our service and legacy to your purposes. Please bless me with inspiration and energy to live the best life I can, to fulfill our plan for my life, and to be the man you call me to be …so when my soul leaves this body you will greet me: "Well done, good and faithful servant."

Writing Your Prayer

If you choose to write your prayer, be bold enough to say where you feel "called." Go past your feelings of awkwardness about affirming what may seem beyond your reach. State your choices even if you might change them or if you are not yet sure how to fulfill them. Ask questions like, "God, what would you have me do? What is my purpose? What do I believe? What do I value? What do I want and need? What do I promise to God and myself?"

From your prayer, you can identify and write more specific and tangible goals, priorities, plans, and appointments in your plan for life that will help carry out your callings. If you invest even 1% of your time (10-15 minutes per day) over a few weeks or months reading and improving your prayer and plan for life, the resulting "tablets" will inspire and guide you to lead your life increasingly as you have been called.

<<Back to Archive

View for Printing

Contributors
Staff
Advertising
Internships

Send this Page to a Friend

Add Me to Mailing List