My favorite prayer book is A Diary of Private Prayer (1949) by John Baillie (1886-1960). Baillie was a Church of Scotland pastor and theologian. The book’s simple format contains morning and evening prayers for thirty-one days. I recommend this book in the words of one of my old seminary professors who would say of his favorite book: “Buy this book. I don’t care if you don’t have any money. Sell your shoes if you have to, but buy this book.” I have used it every day for decades.
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I have often used portions of Baillie’s prayers in my Sunday worship services and in this blog. The following links are to Emailmeditations which have the complete text of several morning and evening prayers. The book is now in the public domain, so I have edited the prayers and paraphrased the wording in many places.
All of the prayers are excellent. If you want your own copy, the book is still in print. New and used copies are readily available from Amazon. A new paraphrase by Susanna Wright is published by Simon and Schuster for $15.99. I prefer Baillie’s original wording, but Wright’s will be more readable for many.
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1235) Morning and Evening Prayer (jb1)
1242) Morning and Evening Prayer (jb2)
1249) Morning and Evening Prayer (jb3)
1256) Morning and Evening Prayer (jb4)
1263) Morning and Evening Prayer (jb5)
1270) Morning and Evening Prayer (jb6)
1277) Morning and Evening Prayer (jb7)
1284) Morning and Evening Prayer (jb8)
1291) Morning and Evening Prayer (jb9)
1298) Morning and Evening Prayer (jb10)
1305) Morning and Evening Prayer (jb11)
1312) Morning and Evening Prayer (jb12)
1319) Morning and Evening Prayer (jb13)