Amy Boucher Pye

Category: Prayer Exercise

  • A prayer of blessing

    A prayer for you today:

    May the mystery of God enfold us,
may the wisdom of God uphold us, 
may the fragrance of God be around us, 
may the brightness of God surround us, 
may the wonder of God renew us,
may the loving of God flow through us, 
may the peace of God deeply move us, 
may the moving of God bring us peace.


Joy Cowley, Aotearoa, New Zealand as found in Geoffrey Duncan, compiler, A World of Blessing: Benedictions from every continent and many cultures (Norwich: Canterbury Press Norwich, 2000), p. 226.

  • A moment for breath prayers

    Have just over a minute to breathe and pray? I welcome you to breathe in the love of God, the companionship of Jesus, and the advocacy of the Holy Spirit. Filmed in the beautiful setting of Mulberry House.

    More prayer practices on my YouTube channel, and sign up for my monthly newsletter with its special prayer exercise.

    https://www.instagram.com/reel/CrljFe5udRr/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

  • Praying Jesus’ prayer

    Jesus loved his friends, and taught them how to pray. This prayer may be so familiar to us that we skim over it, but we can slow down and ponder each phrase for encouragement, inspiration, and delight. Join me in the amazing ruins of Waverley Abbey, the first monastery in Britain, as I lead us through this prayer.

    This prayer exercise forms part of the online course that Waverley Abbey Trust produced on The Prayers of Jesus, complete with small-group guide.

    Let me know if you use this prayer exercise, and if you’re willing, how God met you. May praying the words Jesus prayed enrich your faith in him and love for others.

  • Looking back to move forward in 2023

    Happy new year! The prayer of examen is simply looking back to move forward with God. You might want to take some time this month to consider a few questions as we launch into the new year. I found these somewhere last year and engaged with them – I’m sorry that I didn’t note where that was!

    Three questions to consider:
    1. What have the storms of 2022 picked up and blown away for you?
    2. How has 2022 anchored you more firmly?
    3. What fresh roots have you discovered in the noise of this past season?

  • Meeting God in Spain

    Hello from sunny Spain! I am here at El Palmeral leading a retreat. This week we’re exploring the story of Jesus with Mary, Martha, and Lazarus, and how friendship with God changes them—and us. I’ll be sharing some videos on my YouTube channel in which I lead prayer exercises and welcome you to join in. Here’s one that introduces the lovely chapel, after we’d prayed night prayer together. Enjoy!

  • Praying with the Bible: From prose to poetry

    Recently when on retreat I led some times of engaging with the Bible prayerfully, including turning some of the prose into a poem. I love this rendition that I’ve been given permission to share.

    You could read through it slowly, asking God to help your love overflow. Then perhaps spend some time with a passage of your choosing, having a go yourself?

    And this is my prayer, that your love may overflow more and more with knowledge and full insight to help you to determine what is best, so that on the day of Christ you may be pure and blameless…

    Philippians 1:9–10, NRSV

    Eyes to see, 
    Ears to hear, 
    Heart to love, 
    being and becoming

    Knowing to knowledge; 
    Helpless to helped; 
    Better to best,
    Mercy and forgiveness

    Graceless to graceful
    Thankless to thankful
    God’s love abounds to all around
    God’s love, God’s love, you have been found
    –Ann Ruby

    Order 7 Ways to Pray here for more ways to encounter God, including a chapter on praying with the Bible.

  • The Lord is my. . .

    I continue to love personalizing Psalm 23, and this week as I’m at Penhurst Retreat Centre in the lovely English countryside, I’m enjoying seeing the sheep and lambs as I ponder the Lord as my Shepherd. I share in the video below, which I recorded while being in the Shepherd’s Hut at Penhurst, about how to adapt Psalm 23 to us today.

    On social media I welcomed hearing your renditions, and I’m delighted to share Caroline Lessiter’s lovely one: “The Lord is my Friend,” with permission.

    The Lord is my friend, therefore I lack no support.
    He makes me rest when I am tired; 
He leads me to thin places 
    where I can take stock and be refreshed.
He guides me when I am feeling lost,
    for His glory.

Even though I may be deeply troubled 
    I fear nothing, 
because You are at my side always.
    Your ever presence 
comforts me.

You hold out Your hands of love 
    and welcome me during my times of struggle.
You wrap me in Your loving embrace 
    and I am filled with Your strength.
Surely Your grace and mercy will be with me 
    for the rest of my life
and I will live in my Father’s house 
    forever.

  • Join me in praying from Penhurst Retreat Centre

    This week I’m leading a 7 Ways to Pray retreat from the lovely Penhurst Retreat Centre near Battle, East Sussex (on the south coast of England). I welcome you to experience some of the wonder of this place, and more so, our amazing God who loves to meet us in prayer.

    I’ll be adding short videos each day to my YouTube channel – wifi permitting! (It’s very slow here out in the countryside.) You can also enjoy the videos I created back in March from Lee Abbey, Devon, if you want to jump in now. We won’t have the seaside this week, but amazing English gardens.

    The first video I created last night shortly after arriving while sitting in the sun-soaked garden by the labyrinth. How to prepare for a retreat? I give some pointers, and some silence to enjoy the birdsong.

    How do you best prepare for a retreat?

  • Abiding in the Vine: Praying with John 15

    How can we pray with Scripture, trusting that God will meet us through his word? One time-tested practice, about which I write in 7 Ways to Pray, is lectio divina. That’s a bit of jargon but it’s simply Latin for sacred reading (or prayerful reading). It’s a four-step process that helps us to slow down and engage with the text prayerfully. The four steps are:

    • reading
    • reflecting
    • responding
    • resting

    Join me in engaging with a favorite passage out of John 15 in this way of praying. Last week I spoke at Bethel University, my alma mater, and during the talk gave plenty of time for people to try out the four steps. Now you can too – take a mini-retreat, brew a cuppa, and know that God longs to meet with you!

  • How to Practice the Presence of God

    How can we fix our minds on Christ? One way to practice the presence of God – to remind ourselves that through his Spirit he lives within those who follow him – is to focus on certain Bible passages.

    Why not set aside a week to engage with this way of praying? Following are seven Scripture texts – you could focus on a different one each day.

    Know that God delights to meet us when we pray.

    • ABIDE – John 15:4: “Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.”
    • SET YOUR HEARTS AND MINDS – Colossians 3:1–2: “Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things.”
    • DWELL – Philippians 4:8: “…whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.”
    • REMEMBER – Isaiah 46:9: “Remember the former things, those of long ago; I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me.”
    • REJOICE, PRAY, GIVE THANKS –1 Thessalonians 5:16–18: “Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.”
    • WALK – Galatians 5:25: “Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit.”
    • KEEP RUNNING – Hebrews 12:1–2: “…let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith.”