Prayer and the Second Chance

Read Acts 15:36-41
³⁶ After some days Paul said to Barnabas, “Come, let us return and visit the believers in every city where we proclaimed the word of the Lord and see how they are doing.” ³⁷ Barnabas wanted to take with them John called Mark. ³⁸ But Paul decided not to take with them one who had deserted them in Pamphylia and had not accompanied them in the work. ³⁹ The disagreement became so sharp that they parted company; Barnabas took Mark with him and sailed away to Cyprus. ⁴⁰ But Paul chose Silas and set out, the believers^[p] commending him to the grace of the Lord. ⁴¹ He went through Syria and Cilicia, strengthening the churches.

and II Timothy 4:9-13
⁹ Do your best to come to me soon, ¹⁰ for Demas, in love with this present world, has deserted me and gone to Thessalonica; Crescens has gone to Galatia, Titus to Dalmatia. ¹¹ Only Luke is with me. Get Mark and bring him with you, for he is useful in my ministry. ¹² I have sent Tychicus to Ephesus. ¹³ When you come, bring the cloak that I left with Carpus at Troas, also the books, and above all the parchments.

        One of the ministries of your mercy, Lord, is the way that a door that seemed closed the last time I looked so often swings open again; including doors I thought someone had probably slammed shut forever.  It will raise my spirits as I move through the day if I bear in mind a truth the years have taught -- the truth that most opportunities knock more than once.  You have fashioned the human story in such a way that we have good reason to expect: 

¨   That the chance will come to show ourselves and others we can do well the task we did so badly the first time around.

¨   That the "never again!" in us or others that shuts down a relationship is likely to soften with time, and a friendship or family bond we thought had died may come to life again.

¨   That if we listen, watch, and wait, and if we do not lock ourselves into grieving over the door that closed, another door will quietly open. 

It comforts me as I enter what happens today to remember that I do not write the effects of what I do or say in indelible ink.  I am grateful that you to whom I pray have shown yourself to be generous with second, third and fourth chances.

                Amen.
 

Prayer and taking up your cross

Read Mark 8:34-37

³⁴ He called the crowd with his disciples, and said to them, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. ³⁵ For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it. ³⁶ For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life? ³⁷ Indeed, what can they give in return for their life?

 

           "If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me."  The words are in your book, Lord, and although I look away, they refuse to go away.  The cross-bearing part of discipleship will not disappear.  It stops nearby, confusing me, troubling me,    nudging me. 

Teach me that taking up a cross does not mean assuming that the harder way will always be the more faithful way, simply because it is harder.  A punishing of me that serves no useful purpose is masochism, not martyrdom.

Teach me that taking up a cross does not mean enduring bravely the normal cares and trials of life.  Sickness, the infirmities of age, family problems -- these are burdens, not crosses.

Teach me that taking up a cross does not mean leaving no room in my life for joy and laughter and play.  Recesses from cross bearing are more than just permissible; they are necessary.

Teach me that taking up a cross means understanding that no one is entitled to walk through life carrying far less than his or her strength can handle, while others are carrying far more.

Teach me that taking up a cross means taking on some small piece of the pain of the world and hardship when my doing it will lighten the load others are carrying.

Teach me that taking up a cross means taking on my fair share of the pain of the world because I choose to, not because I have to. 

                Listening when someone needs to be heard and entering into his or her pain, speaking the word that needs to be spoken when speaking it does not win friends, a gift of time, a gift of money.  Crosses may take some of these shapes in my life.  Help me, I pray, to recognize them when they appear, and to walk toward them, not away from them.

                Amen.

 

 

Prayer and Humility

Read Romans 12:3-8
³ For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of yourself more highly than you ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. ⁴ For as in one body we have many members, and not all the members have the same function, ⁵ so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually we are members one of another. ⁶ We have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us: prophecy, in proportion to faith; ⁷ ministry, in ministering; the teacher, in teaching; ⁸ the exhorter, in exhortation; the giver, in generosity; the leader, in diligence; the compassionate, in cheerfulness.

               I keep getting confused about humility, Lord.  What does it look and feel like?  When I am confused, I risk turning a virtue into a vice, strength into a weakness.  I pray today for the wisdom to grasp what humility means, for the will to grip the vision tightly enough so that I do not lose it, and for the grace to grow toward it.

                Help me to learn and remember that humility is not what we are to feel in the presence of other people.  Humility is not: 

¨   Feeling others are worthy and I am unworthy;

¨   Feeling my rights and even my needs should always retreat before the whims and wishes of others;

¨   Feeling I should be interested in others but have no reason to expect them to be interested in me. 

Help me to learn and remember that humility is what I feel in your presence, Lord.  Humility is: 

¨   Feeling my transience, your permanence;

¨   Feeling my littleness, your majesty and greatness;

¨   Feeling my frailties, your perfection;

¨   Feeling my blurred and partial vision, your clear, complete vision;

¨   Feeling my flickering obedience, your unwavering faithfulness. 

The word of the gospel is that you see me as I am and yet call me worthy -- worthy of love, respect, and patience.  When I see myself as valued by you, the way is opened for me to look upon other people with neither dependence nor condescension, but with the liberty and dignity one child of yours owes another child of yours.

Amen.

 

Prayer and Pain

Read Psalm 23
¹ The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.
²     He makes me lie down in green pastures;
he leads me beside still waters;
³     he restores my soul.
He leads me in right paths
    for his name’s sake.

⁴ Even though I walk through the darkest valley,
    I fear no evil;
for you are with me;
    your rod and your staff—
    they comfort me.

⁵ You prepare a table before me
    in the presence of my enemies;
you anoint my head with oil;
    my cup overflows.
⁶ Surely^[e] goodness and mercy shall follow me
    all the days of my life,
and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord
    my whole life long.

 

 

                If you divided all the pain of the world evenly, Lord, I think it would turn out that I have had less than my share.  However, pain and I are not strangers.  I have had my times of mental and spiritual pain, and those times will come again.  Moreover, I have had my times of physical pain, and as the years roll on I know those times are likely to increase in frequency and intensity.

                I want to be among those who bear pain well, and I pray that the right kinds of faith and understanding and courage will be in me when I need them.

                When pain comes to me, help me to remember:

¨   At any given moment, I never have more than that one moment of pain to handle.  I may dread the total pain an hour or a week represents, but it is not as if I will ever have to meet head-on the accumulated burden.  I experience this moment of pain now and then the next moment of pain. I never experience more than the present moment of pain.

¨   Pain does not have to be a useless, destructive experience, a time-out from productive living.  It can be a training ground on which I learn lessons of sympathy, humility, patience, and fortitude.  It has been that for others; it can be that for me.

¨   My pain can be a redemptive, ennobling experience for those who know and love me if I bear it in such a way that they see in me a glimpse of the strength of the human spirit.

¨   I can look upon the way I bear my pain, and the kind of witness I make by the way I bear it, as an offering I am making to you -- an offering I want to be a worthy offering.

Amen.

 

 

Prayer on Taking Responsibiity

Read Joshua 24:14-27

¹⁴ “Now therefore revere the Lord, and serve him in sincerity and in faithfulness; put away the gods that your ancestors served beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve the Lord. ¹⁵ Now if you are unwilling to serve the Lord, choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served in the region beyond the River or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you are living; but as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.”
¹⁶ Then the people answered, “Far be it from us that we should forsake the Lord to serve other gods; ¹⁷ for it is the Lord our God who brought us and our ancestors up from the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery, and who did those great signs in our sight. He protected us along all the way that we went, and among all the peoples through whom we passed; ¹⁸ and the Lord drove out before us all the peoples, the Amorites who lived in the land. Therefore we also will serve the Lord, for he is our God.”
¹⁹ But Joshua said to the people, “You cannot serve the Lord, for he is a holy God. He is a jealous God; he will not forgive your transgressions or your sins. ²⁰ If you forsake the Lord and serve foreign gods, then he will turn and do you harm, and consume you, after having done you good.” ²¹ And the people said to Joshua, “No, we will serve the Lord!” ²² Then Joshua said to the people, “You are witnesses against yourselves that you have chosen the Lord, to serve him.” And they said, “We are witnesses.” ²³ He said, “Then put away the foreign gods that are among you, and incline your hearts to the Lord, the God of Israel.” ²⁴ The people said to Joshua, “The Lord our God we will serve, and him we will obey.” ²⁵ So Joshua made a covenant with the people that day, and made statutes and ordinances for them at Shechem. ²⁶ Joshua wrote these words in the book of the law of God; and he took a large stone, and set it up there under the oak in the sanctuary of the Lord. ²⁷ Joshua said to all the people, “See, this stone shall be a witness against us; for it has heard all the words of the Lord that he spoke to us; therefore it shall be a witness against you, if you deal falsely with your God.”

 

                There are some days, Lord, when I blame myself too much for the things I do not like about the way my life is going, and there are other days when I blame myself too little.  I need more days when I see the boundaries clearly.  Help me, I pray, to make today one of those days.

                I did not choose my parents; I did not choose my genes.  I did not shape them; they have shaped me.  I did not choose my childhood environment.  I did not shape it; it shaped me.  My life, like every life, is loaded with factors and forces I neither can escape nor control.  They limit the range of my choices, and affect the outcome of the choices I do make.  In deep and far-reaching ways, I live in a world I did not make.  There is so much for which I am not responsible, and now and then, I could use a gentle reminder of that.

                Nevertheless, far more often, Lord, I need your blunt, stern reminders that in all the issues where the stakes are highest.  I am the maker of my own victories and my own defeats.  If I fail to become and remain a decent, faithful human being, it will be no one's fault but mine.

 

¨   I can be honest.  If I am not, destiny will not be to blame; I will be.

¨   I can be faithful to my spouse, family, friends, co-workers, community, and nation. If I am not, destiny will not be to blame; I will be.

¨   I can respect the sacredness of life. If I do not, destiny will not be to blame; I will be.

¨   I can fully employ whatever abilities I have.  If I do not, destiny will not be to blame; I will be.

¨   I can raise above my self-centeredness enough to be interested in other people and care about them.  If I do not, destiny will not be to blame; I will be.

¨   I can listen and respond to the longings of my heart that points me toward you.  If I do not, destiny will not be to blame; I will be.

May today be a day when I take upon myself what is mine to take.

                Amen.

Prayer Dealing with the Messiness of Life

Read II Corinthians 4
Therefore, since it is by God’s mercy that we are engaged in this ministry, we do not lose heart. ... ⁵ For we do not proclaim ourselves; we proclaim Jesus Christ as Lord and ourselves as your slaves for Jesus’ sake. ⁶ For it is the God who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
⁷ But we have this treasure in clay jars, so that it may be made clear that this extraordinary power belongs to God and does not come from us. ⁸ We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; ⁹ persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; ¹⁰ always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be made visible in our bodies. ¹¹ For while we live, we are always being given up to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus may be made visible in our mortal flesh. ¹² So death is at work in us, but life in you.
¹³ But just as we have the same spirit of faith that is in accordance with scripture—“I believed, and so I spoke”—we also believe, and so we speak, ¹⁴ because we know that the one who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus, and will bring us with you into his presence. ¹⁵ Yes, everything is for your sake, so that grace, as it extends to more and more people, may increase thanksgiving, to the glory of God.
¹⁶ So we do not lose heart. Even though our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed day by day. ¹⁷ For this slight momentary affliction is preparing us for an eternal weight of glory beyond all measure, ¹⁸ because we look not at what can be seen but at what cannot be seen; for what can be seen is temporary, but what cannot be seen is eternal.

                Lord, I am praying that between now and the end of the day I will manage to remember how frustrating and how foolish it is to keep finding fault with the nature of life, to keep rebelling against reality.

                What makes me think my world should be a world in which: 

¨   Relationships will always flow smoothly along, the people I live and work with will always be just what I want them to be, and I will always be just what they want me to be;

¨   Every problem will have a neat solution, with all the messiness cleaned up, all the loose ends tied up;

¨   Things fixed once will stay fixed, with no weeds growing if I walk away, no need to for even intermittent tending. 

When my thoughts are clear, I know it is out of my childishness, my sentimentality and my unfaithfulness that such expectations come.

When my thoughts are clear, I know how arrogant it is to balk at accepting my own limits, and to act as if I have been short-changed because earth is not heaven.

Into this very world, once upon a time, you sent Christ.  He accepted its untidiness, and lived as cleanly and beautifully as he could in the midst of it.

Perhaps you ask no more and no less of me.

Amen.

Prayer Concerning Our Idolatry

Read Philippians 2:1-5

If then there is any encouragement in Christ, any consolation from love, any sharing in the Spirit, any compassion and sympathy, ² make my joy complete: be of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. ³ Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. ⁴ Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others. ⁵ Let the same mind be in you that was^[a] in Christ Jesus...

 

               There is a lot of distance, Lord, between the unmistakable forms of Old Testament idolatry and us.  Images cast from metal or carved from wood have never figured in our lives and never will.

                Idolatry is a far more subtle process for us.  We do not find ourselves actually worshipping false gods.  We do find ourselves drawn toward admiring, envying, or elevating into importance things that do not deserve the tribute we pay to them. 

• People who seem to have all the pleasure for which a human being could ask, even if at the expense of using others for that purpose;
• Toughness that can, without a trace of sympathy and without a backward glance, make decisions that will hurt dozens of other people;
• Ambition so single-minded in its drive toward its goal that every other consideration is shunted aside;
• Fame that turns heads, opens doors, makes news;
• Wealth so plentiful that it puts almost any material want within easy reach, and puts an end to any trace of financial insecurity.

Part of us looks at the people who have these things we lack, and wonders if life would not seem more exciting, more worth living, if only we could be more like them.

                However, the better part of us, knows that when that kind of wondering begins to come over us, we do battle with some of the shapes idolatry takes in us.  The false gods are elbowing their way toward a place on the altar of our hearts.

                Whenever those false gods make their move -- today, tomorrow, any day -- may the admonition of faith move with all its power into the battlefield of our minds: "Let that mind be in me that was in Christ Jesus our Lord." (Philippians 2:5)

                Amen.

 

 

Prayer Concerning Relationships

 

               I Corinthians 12:31-13:13.
And I will show you a still more excellent way. If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. ² And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. ³ If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.
⁴ Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant ⁵ or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; ⁶ it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. ⁷ It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
⁸ Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end. ⁹ For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part; ¹⁰ but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end. ¹¹ When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways. ¹² For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. ¹³ And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.

I could use your help, Lord, in handling the relationships in my life that are not going very well right now.

                Some of them have never gone well.  The initial distance has never closed; the comfort and pleasure I think we both hoped would come with time have not come.  The words and gestures I intend to be friendly somehow consistently misfire.  Since circumstances of work or family have linked our lives together, I wish we could close the distance and we could warm up the coldness.

                The relationships not going well that trouble me most are the ones that have lost the ease and closeness and warmth they once had.  I feel the loss, and I think the other person may feel it, too.  I can do something about my side of the relationship.  Therefore, today, I pray: 

¨   For the patience to keep trying;

¨   For the freedom from the anxiety and insecurity that tend to make my efforts clumsy;

¨   For a readiness to see and acknowledge whatever blame is mine;

¨   For the grace to forgive trespasses and accept idiosyncrasies, knowing that in so doing I will only be giving what I need the other to give me.

Amen.

 

Prayer to see truly Everyday Life

                Read Psalm 8.

¹ O Lord, our Sovereign,
    how majestic is your name in all the earth!

You have set your glory above the heavens.
²     Out of the mouths of babes and infants
you have founded a bulwark because of your foes,
    to silence the enemy and the avenger.

³ When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers,
    the moon and the stars that you have established;
⁴ what are human beings that you are mindful of them,
    mortals that you care for them?

⁵ Yet you have made them a little lower than God,
    and crowned them with glory and honor.
⁶ You have given them dominion over the works of your hands;
    you have put all things under their feet,
⁷ all sheep and oxen,
    and also the beasts of the field,
⁸ the birds of the air, and the fish of the sea,
    whatever passes along the paths of the seas.

⁹ O Lord, our Sovereign,
    how majestic is your name in all the earth!

 

 

       I do not have to look far, Lord -- no farther, I am afraid, than my own life -- to find signs of the pettiness that can grip the human spirit.  However, remind me today that neither do I have to look far -- no farther, perhaps, than my own life -- to find signs of the splendor of the human spirit.  Remind me that words like heroism, beauty, and sacrifice do not soar so high they never touch down in my life and in the lives of those nearby. I may need to look no further than my heart or the heart of one near to me to see the hero, the beauty, and the sacrifice for others, which I long to see. I need not fear who I am or can be.  

¨   It is likely that within a block or two of where I live, a woman is confronting a life-shortening illness, or a man is struggling with a radical career adjustment.  Each is facing head-on what they must face, and each is doing it with an unflinching courage.  I do not need to long for the hero of stage and screen or the superhero who gains so much attention. I need the reminder of the heroism of everyday life. Heroism is not far-off; it is close by.

¨   Help me to see and have the kind of beauty that is more achievement than gift.  I see this beauty in the callused, knobby hands of an aged carpenter.  I see this beauty in the crinkled laugh-lines moving out from the eyes and mouth of a proud and loving grandmother.  I see this beauty in the steady, firm-jawed look of someone who has lived with pain and mastered it. 

¨   In a fatherless family, an older sister goes to work on graduating from high school and sees to it that she gives a younger brother the educational opportunities she did not have.  A man who had looked forward to his retirement of travel and recreation instead spends his retirement years lovingly and patiently caring for his stroke-victim wife.  Genuine, impressive sacrifice touches down sometimes in the house next door, or in our house. 

Grant me, Lord, eyes that can see and a mind that can appreciate the glory and grandeur of the human spirit that, more often than I sometimes think, weaves its bright colors into the texture of everyday life.

                Amen.

Prayer on Costly Grace

Read Luke 15: 11-24

¹¹ Then Jesus said, “There was a man who had two sons. ¹² The younger of them said to his father, ‘Father, give me the share of the property that will belong to me.’ So he divided his property between them. ¹³ A few days later the younger son gathered all he had and traveled to a distant country, and there he squandered his property in dissolute living. ¹⁴ When he had spent everything, a severe famine took place throughout that country, and he began to be in need. ¹⁵ So he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed the pigs. ¹⁶ He would gladly have filled himself with the pods that the pigs were eating; and no one gave him anything. ¹⁷ But when he came to himself he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired hands have bread enough and to spare, but here I am dying of hunger! ¹⁸ I will get up and go to my father, and I will say to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; ¹⁹ I am no longer worthy to be called your son; treat me like one of your hired hands.”’ ²⁰ So he set off and went to his father. But while he was still far off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion; he ran and put his arms around him and kissed him. ²¹ Then the son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’  ²² But the father said to his slaves, ‘Quickly, bring out a robe—the best one—and put it on him; put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. ²³ And get the fatted calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate; ²⁴ for this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found!’ And they began to celebrate.

 

Read Hebrews 5:7-10

 In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to the one who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverent submission. ⁸ Although he was a Son, he learned obedience through what he suffered; ⁹ and having been made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him, ¹⁰ having been designated by God a high priest according to the order of Melchizedek.

John 19: 28-30
²⁸ After this, when Jesus knew that all was now finished, he said (in order to fulfill the scripture), “I am thirsty.” ²⁹ A jar full of sour wine was standing there. So they put a sponge full of the wine on a branch of hyssop and held it to his mouth. ³⁰ When Jesus had received the wine, he said, “It is finished.” Then he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.

                Your grace, Lord, and the grace of those who love me, often seem to flow so easily and freely I overlook how much the giving may have cost the giver.  Those who have sent the gifts of love into my life have rarely called attention to their own generosity; they printed the return address on the packages in very small type.

                I want to remember today that grace is hardly ever cheap.  Repeatedly the work of grace weaves the threads of sacrifice.  My life began with a woman's pain in a hospital birthing room.  She said nothing about that pain; my birth was a gift freely given, but it came at the price of pain.  Through the years of childhood and youth, people did things for me so cheerfully and generously I seldom thought of them as representing sacrifice.  Moreover, the generosity that was in my parents has continued to come my way from family and friends, with the cost to the givers so hidden by their love I often did not notice the cost was there.

                I want to remember today the forgiveness that brings comfort back into a strained relationship. It offers the new beginnings I so frequently need. Such forgiveness is not as effortless as it appears to be.  The people I care most about, because they care about me, tend to be so quick with their forgiveness I do not see the pain that surrounds it. Often they are forgiving wounds inflicted by my thoughtlessness, my indifference, my selfishness -- and wounds hurt.

                As it is with them, so too, Lord, with you.  Turn me around whenever I start to turn your grace into cheap grace, whenever I forget that to a God who cares deeply about righteousness, the forgiveness of unrighteousness can never be easy.  When the prodigal son came home, he must have seen in the face of his father the lines etched by pain, grief, and loneliness (Luke 15:11-24).  When the church has thought about forgiveness, it has thought about a cross.

                The grace that sustains and forgives is not cost-free.  Today and every day, help me to remember.

                Amen.

 

Prayer Concerning Respect for Self and Others

 

               Read Genesis 1:26-31.

²⁶ Then God said, “Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the wild animals of the earth,^[and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.”

²⁷ So God created humankind in his image,
    in the image of God he created them;
    male and female he created them.

²⁸ God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.” ²⁹ God said, “See, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit; you shall have them for food. ³⁰ And to every beast of the earth, and to every bird of the air, and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.” And it was so. ³¹ God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.

 

                There are days, Lord, when I have trouble keeping straight the ways in which I am special and the ways in which I am not special at all.  I know that when I do not keep them straight, I am apt to twist my respect for myself and my respect for others out of shape.

                Help me today to remember: 

¨   That there never has been and never will be another person exactly like me; there is no one else in whom the same genes and experiences have combined;

¨   That I, therefore, am an unduplicated part of your creative process;

¨   That the Genesis benediction on creation applies to me: "and God saw that it was good;" (GN 1:12)

¨   That what you see as worthy I must not see as unworthy; I may sometimes despise what I do with what I am, but I should never despise who I am;

¨   That the song you want me to sing is my song, not someone else's. 

Please do not let me forget: 

¨   That every other person in the world is just as special as I am;

¨   That I, therefore, have no right to ask others to treat me differently than other people are treated, no right to assume other people will see me as being special in a way they are not. 

Nurture in me today, I pray, this elusive blending of pride and humility. Amen.

 

Prayer Concerning Aging

                Read II Timothy 4:6-8.

⁶ As for me, I am already being poured out as a libation, and the time of my departure has come. ⁷ I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. ⁸ From now on there is reserved for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will give me on that day, and not only to me but also to all who have longed for his appearing.

 

                For me as for everyone, Lord, the years are adding up.  I want to handle their passage with grace: I do not want to grow old without having grown up.

                Grant me, I pray, the honesty and courage to acknowledge and accept the changes the years will inevitably bring: 

¨   Changes in physical appearance;

¨   Changes in physical strength, agility and energy;

¨   Changes from my children often needing me to them seldom needing me;

¨   Changes from feeling so many doors are open to knowing so many doors have closed. 

If the years are bound to shape me, I also have the power to shape them.  What I have watched others do, I, too, can do.  What the aging process can give I can receive, if the will and desire are in me. 

¨   I pray that my picture of myself will become a truer picture, a picture less and less tinted by illusion and self-deception.

¨   I pray that the cooling of the fires of ambition will set me free to do my work without the distractions of envy and anxiety.

¨   I pray that my sense of proportion, of that about which is most worth caring, the tests of time will clarify and purify.

¨   I pray that my awareness of the doors that time is closing will sharpen my appreciation of the doors that are still wide open -- the doors that can lead to a deepening faith and to a stronger, better, wiser me.

Amen.

 

 

Prayer Concerning Appearance and Being

                Read James 2:1-7.

My brothers and sisters, do you with your acts of favoritism really believe in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ? ² For if a person with gold rings and in fine clothes comes into your assembly, and if a poor person in dirty clothes also comes in, ³ and if you take notice of the one wearing the fine clothes and say, “Have a seat here, please,” while to the one who is poor you say, “Stand there,” or, “Sit at my feet,” ⁴ have you not made distinctions among yourselves, and become judges with evil thoughts? ⁵ Listen, my beloved brothers and sisters. Has not God chosen the poor in the world to be rich in faith and to be heirs of the kingdom that he has promised to those who love him? ⁶ But you have dishonored the poor. Is it not the rich who oppress you? Is it not they who drag you into court? ⁷ Is it not they who blaspheme the excellent name that was invoked over you?

                Lord, the culture in which I awoke this morning and in which I will go to sleep tonight is a culture that makes heavy investments in the cultivation of images or appearances.

                It is hard for me not to allow the cultural tide of a focus upon image and appearance to sweep me along.  The evidence all around me is that we build or break reputations and we give or withhold rewards more based on what people sell themselves as being than based on what they actually are.

                I do not want the cultural tide of a focus upon image and appearance to sweep me, Lord.  I do not want my concern about what I seem to be ever to become more important than my concern about what I am.

                For the sake of integrity, I do not want to sell out seeming to being.  The psalmist (51:6) said that you "desire truth in the inward being."  I know there will not be truth in my inward being if appearances become more important to me than reality.  If seeming generous becomes more important than being generous, if seeming devout becomes more important than being devout, if seeming to care becomes more important than caring.  I know integrity will get lost along the way.

                For the sake of the quality of my work, I do not want to sell out seeming to being.  If I worry as much about how people think I am doing my job as I worry about how I am actually doing it, I introduce double-mindedness where there needs to be single-mindedness.  My sensitivity to the grade I receive will siphon away concentration it would be better to spend on the task.  I do not want that to happen.

                For the sake of my peace and steadiness, I do not want to sell out seeming to being.  The game of pretending is a tiring game to play; acting a part can take more out of us than living a part.  Since what satisfies one spectator may bore or annoy another spectator, trying to please everyone is like trying to fight a war on a half dozen fronts.  Reducing the war to the one front of being concerned about what I am instead of about what I seem to be can be like signing an armistice.  I need that armistice. 

                Seeming and being: help me, I pray, to put being first today.  Amen.