My Soul to Keep

1st John chapter 5, verses 14 & 15 are quite instructive for our prayer lives:
14 Now this is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. 15 And if we know that He hears us, whatever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we have asked of Him.   If we ask anything according to His will - that's a statement that is assuring, but challenging.   How do we know the will of God so that we can pray in accordance with it?   I would offer a couple of elements to consider:  1 - the Word of God reveals to us the will of God.   So when we pray, can we say that we are praying in alignment with God's Word?   Another is - are the desires of our heart submitted to the Lordship of Christ - if we are praying selfishly, then I believe that we are not praying Biblically - our desire should be to release the work of God's Kingdom through us, so that He and He alone may receive glory.  As we pray Biblically, from the heart, we experience His power and presence, and we can anticipate seeing the answer to those prayers.

James 5 reminds us that our prayers can be powerful and effective, if we are praying with our hearts in alignment with God:
16 Confess your trespasses to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much. 17 Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed earnestly that it would not rain; and it did not rain on the land for three years and six months. 18 And he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain, and the earth produced its fruit.

I came across a post on the Chicago Tribune website offering some background on the familiar prayer:
Now I lay me down to sleep,
I pray the Lord my Soul to keep;
If I should die before I wake,
I pray the Lord my Soul to take.

This apparently was taken from a prayer called, "Matthew, Mark, Luke and John", once the best known prayer in England, used more often than the Lord's Prayer. It was called the "White Paternoster."  The lines that preceded the "now I lay me down to sleep" lines were:

Matthew, Mark, Luke and John,
Bless the bed that I lie on.
There are four corners to my bed,
Four angels round my head,

One to watch, and one to pray,
And two to bear my soul away.

Some excerpts of other versions have more Biblical content than praying to the gospel writers:

Now I lay me down to sleep,
I pray the Lord my soul to keep;
When in the morning light I wake,
Teach me the path of love to take.

Now I lay me down to sleep,
I pray the Lord my soul to keep;
Guard me Jesus through the night,
And wake me with the morning light.

Now I lay me down to sleep,
I pray the lord my soul to keep,
thy angels watch me through the night,
And keep me safe till morning's light.

A couple of points come to mind:  Number 1, the lines:
If I should die before I wake,
I pray the Lord my Soul to take.

These suggest that you are praying that you'll go to heaven if you die in your sleep.   Well, that is conditional on whether or not you have prayed another prayer before that - the Sinner's Prayer, confessing that Jesus is Lord and believing in your heart that He is risen.   If you have prayed that prayer, you can know that you will be with Jesus in eternity, that you have the promise that you will be with Him when you leave this earth.   We can trust in that promise and have the assurance that we are saved.

Another point is that rote prayers can help focus our attention on God, if we are saying them from the heart.   For example, it can effective to quote the Lord's Prayer, but even more effective if we use the Lord's Prayer as a model or an outline for our prayers - Jesus taught this is the type of prayer that pleases God.    In the Lord's Prayer, we see that Jesus taught to come before God, acknowledging Him as our Father - in heaven.  We come before Him humbly, in worship, with contrite hearts (Hallowed be Thy name...).   We align our hearts and lives with God's Kingdom purposes (Thy Kingdom come...) and His will (Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven).   We pray for our daily needs and for forgiveness.    We pray that we would triumph over temptation and experience God's deliverance from evil.   And we close - for Thine is the Kingdom and the power and the glory - forever. Amen. - by giving God the glory for hearing our prayer and trusting Him for the answer.   As you pray, pray Biblically, aligning your desires with God's.