Prayers in this series:
Life, Strength, The Church, Temptation, Gifts, Contentment
This prayer is part of a series of prayers influenced by the Hebrew dayenu prayer. A dayenu prayer is part of the traditional Jewish celebration of the Passover. "דַּיֵּנוּ/Dayenu" is Hebrew for "it would have been enough." The traditional dayenu prayer remembers God's miraculous deliverance of the Hebrew people from slavery in Egypt, recognizing that each step along the way of that deliverance would have been enough, even if God didn't bring them all the way to the promised land.
These prayers are meant to help us submit to the will of God, recognizing that anything God does for us is more than enough. As you pray, you might not always completely agree with the statement you are reading. Allow the prayer to bring you to a deeper level of surrender. Let God stretch your ability to submit more completely to his will. Whatever God does through these prayers, you can know, it's enough.
A Dayenu Prayer—Contentment
Provider God, you are the giver of all good gifts.
You love to give good gifts to your children,
and every good and perfect gift is from above.
But we don’t always recognize your gifts as good,
and we often want more, and still more, of them.
So, if it seems to us that we don't have enough of your good gifts,
but if you point to the sparrows of the air and the lilies of the field
and you reassure us that we are much more valuable than they are,
that you provide everything we need for body and soul…
It would be enough.
If you gave us good gifts,
but only enough so that we wouldn’t dishonor you (Proverbs 30:9) …
It would be enough.
If you gave us many good gifts,
but only enough so that we wouldn't forget you and disown you (Proverbs 30:9) …
It would be enough.
If you blessed us with great wealth,
but only to remind us of our mortality (James 1:10) …
It would be enough.
And if you gave us the ability to be content in every situation,
whether well fed or hungry,
living in plenty or in want,
if you gave us the gift of contentment whatever the circumstances (Philippians 4:12) …
It would be enough.
—Gary Brouwers © 2026 ReformedWorship.org, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0.
