Everyday Prayers: 365 Days to a Gospel-Centered Faith

"Scotty Smith's daily prayers have arrived in my inbox between 5:00 and 6:00 am every day for at least two years. I have used them to encourage my counseling clients who are going through particular life struggles. Scotty often challenges and delights with memorable phrases. He is not afraid to share the struggles of his own heart in relation to almost every conceivable area of life with vivid honesty, wit, and humility. These prayers will expand your understanding and experience of prayer, of your own heart, and of the God to whom you pray."

"After many years of straining to hear the voice of God, I now understand that God is equally interested in hearing my voice. God has declared me his friend. He offers me an intimate relationship, one composed of deep conversations, trivial remarks, outbursts of emotion--even jokes. If your relationship with God has become a formal thing, read this book. It will help you deepen your friendship with God."

"In many ways Everyday Prayers is a benchmark in the teaching ministry of Scotty Smith. This book finds him talking to God in the public square so that we can find our own prayerful voice in the beauty and craziness of everyday life. Scotty shows us afresh what we instinctually know at our most truthful: the prayers of the people are more messy than they are majestic. Scotty is not afraid to lean into this truth. As a result, the reader finds hope for the day and grace for the journey."

"I so enjoy hearing from Scotty Smith. He is preoccupied with the Good News and is forever seeking out ways to connect us to grace. He is a tremendous communicator in that he seems to feel and think in equal proportions--that is the gift of these written prayers. My heart intersects with these prayers in a new way every time."

"Scotty Smith richly, humbly, and honestly engages the crux of what my heart most wants to say and what I most need to hear as I encounter the passage he is reflecting on. I trust him with my heart; his passion is for Jesus and for us knowing him as Lord, Savior, and friend in all his wildness, goodness, and love. I promise this kind of prayer will fill your day with more holy truth, more honest love, and more hope than through any other morning ritual. We need to be led to pray."

"Each one of these prayers has been a welcome addition to my day. Through the confessional tone and practical human language, Scotty Smith reminds me of the gospel of grace as he further illuminates the great gift it is for us to commune with God."

"Scotty's prayers blast my heart every day with the good news and radical implications of Jesus' love for us. Whether Scotty is leading us to pray about the struggles in our hearts, God's work in the world, the beauty of creation, or the taste of good food, Jesus is the focus and hero of all these prayers. I greatly encourage you to get a copy of my friend's new book."

"For over twenty years knowing Scotty as pastor, teacher, counselor, and friend to the Chapman family has been one of God's greatest gifts of grace to us. Being able to 'boldly approach our Father's throne' with this friend every morning through these prayers has been a treasure, and we're so thankful he is sharing them with the world. In these prayers, Scotty invites us in to his personal journey with honesty, passion, and profound insight and gives us what we believe will prove to be some of the richest moments of your day. Thank you, friend!"

"Scotty's prayers breathe the gospel of grace, and as you pray with him you will find your own heart moving away from your fears, selfish desires, and ambitions to rest again in the joy of knowing that God's favor permanently rests upon you."

"It has been a steady and sober joy and a constant encouragement to begin my day with Scotty Smith in recent months. He awakens me to my sin and need of grace and points me to the Savior every morning. Scotty brings a wealth of pastoral experience to his observations, ones that truly prepare us to walk with the Lord each day. Scotty's thoughts are perfect for a daily devotional. With an image, a question, or a well-formed phrase, he engages us, but more than that, he leads us to engage our own souls, and to do so in the presence of the God of the gospel of grace."

"Scotty Smith's Everyday Prayers is a portal to heaven--not another book on what we ought to do but a delicious reminder of what's been done for us--so that we can enter into the very throne room of heaven knowing that we're welcomed and loved. Buy it! Read it! Pray it! Rejoice!"

"We want to see Jesus in the midst of all the heartache and painfulness of this broken world and in all the anxiety, anger, fear, self-pity, and just ordinary discontent that imposes on our days. Are the love and grace of Christ sufficient for these things? Scotty prays to a Lord who answers this question by his own presence. Scotty's prayers lead us to pray, which is to speak and listen to the Lord by what Scotty calls 'vital, heart-engaged communion.'"

"I want to be led in prayer by a man of God whose heart beats with the music of grace. When I read the prayers of Scotty Smith and pray along with him as I do, my heart sings of the glory of God--being soothed, strengthened, and challenged by the greatness of the gospel."

"One way to improve the diversity and richness of your praying is to learn how to pray as a function of meditating on Scripture. Scotty Smith here illustrates how. But to get maximum benefit from these pages, you should not only carefully read Scotty's prayerful meditations on Scripture but also imitate him by doing something similar whenever you read the Bible."

"Everyday Prayers can jump-start your prayer life. Scotty Smith gives our old, dusty hearts a track to run on that opens the door to deeper fellowship with our heavenly Father."

"All those of us who know Scotty Smith and his ministry know he's a praying man as well as a great preacher, and therefore this book is full of rich resources for our own prayer lives."