When my children were young our bedtime routine was a really big deal for me. I wanted my kids to fall asleep knowing they were safe, secure, and loved. Most nights I tucked in each child, from youngest to oldest, and we talked and sang and prayed together.

There were nights, however, when I was just too exhausted for one-on-one time, so I would plop down in the hallway, between their bedrooms, where I would sing them songs, and then simply pray what I considered to be bottom line, to-the-point prayers. These were the petitions I considered the most important, and the ones I longed for God to answer on behalf of each of their lives.

“Lord,” I would pray, “teach my children to know You, to love You, to serve You, to seek and obey You all the days of their lives!”

Looking back, I would have added one more prayer to my list, the most important one of all. “Lord, let each of my children know how very much you love them!”

Before Easter, I would say I considered “The Lord’s Prayer,” which I pray nearly every morning, to be Jesus bottom line prayer. Yet, I began to see new bottom line, to-the-point prayers, as I meditated on Jesus final prayer with His disciples in John 17: After Jesus said this, he looked toward heaven and prayed:”Father, the hour has come. Glorify your Son, that your Son may glorify you…9) I pray for them. I am not praying for the world, but for those you have given me, for they are yours. I will remain in the world no longer, but they are still in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them by the power of your name, the name you gave me, so that they may be one as we are one. 13) I am coming to you now, but I say these things while I am still in the world, so that they may have the full measure of my joy within them. 14) I have given them your word and the world has hated them, for they are not of the world any more than I am of the world. 15) My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one… 17) Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth…20) My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, 21) that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. 22) I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one— 23) I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me. 24) Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory, the glory you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world. 25) Righteous Father, though the world does not know you, I know you, and they know that you have sent me. I have made you known to them, and will continue to make you known in order that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them.” (emphasis added, mine)

After I studied Jesus final petitions, through the lenses of contending in prayer, I noted His precious and passionate prayers for the saints! They are the to-the-point prayers I want to pray regularly, especially when I don’t have the bandwidth for longer, more detailed prayers.

This list is saved on my phone screensaver. I love Jesus bottom line, to-the-point prayers for us, His followers. I want these eternal, kingdom prayers to become my own, as I contend for myself and for others for God’s glory, protection, oneness, unity, joy, sanctification, and future believers, as well as for the Father’s love for Jesus, and Jesus Himself, to be in us! Amen and Amen!