Prayer: I have rejected your word when it did not suit my agenda

Lord, you are mighty and merciful. I must confess, though, that I have rejected your revealed word when it did not suit my agenda. I have settled for fitting you in my life, rather than have my life conform to you. In my pride, I have failed to repent of my sins or even acknowledge their existence. I ask your forgiveness. Give me eyes to see your Son as he is, ears to hear his truth, a heart captive to his will, and hands that draw others into the presence of the Son. I pray these things, through Christ our Lord. Amen.

Prayer: I pray for the courage of an open heart

Lord, I am grateful for your love. I pray today for the courage to have an open heart as I come to you in prayer. I admit my weaknesses. I know I will receive your loving understanding and leave this quiet time strengthened because by this conversation with you. Here are a just a few of my weaknesses.

• For the times I have been less than patient with other people in my life.
• I regret the instances when I have not given others the mercy they extended to me.
• I am sorry that I have trivialized the important issues and exaggerated the small stuff.
• Forgive me for all the occasions when I become extremely angry.

In spite of the weaknesses I can name and the weaknesses of which I am not even aware, help me to have gratitude today for the people in my life who love me anyway. I ask you, as one who loves me, to grant to me the grace to forgive myself. Help me to let go of the times when I have been less than my best. When others have forgiven me and when you have long forgotten, I still harbor feelings of shame and remorse. Help me to let go and love myself anyway, just as you continue to love me. I pray the lessons of the past might give me hope for the future. I pray these things in the name of the one who came that we might follow the way of love and life eternal. Amen.

Prayer: I need to reorient myself to the truths of faith

Lord, you are mighty, the creator of the universe, the one who sustains life, and the future redeemer of the world. I am in awe that one who is majesty and mystery is willing to receive my humble worship, hear my prayers, and care for my concerns and burdens. I need to reorient myself to the truths of faith.

• Life is more that I can see or touch.
• Love can conquer hate.
• Forgiveness of my enemies is not only possible but a command.
• I embrace the truth that I find hope in Jesus Christ rather than anything in which I might trust in this world.
• I embrace the truth that the foundation of life rests on Christ rather than anything I am or do.  

Thank you for meeting me here, in my place and my time. I pray for your Spirit to speak to me and renew me by your divine grace. Amen.

Prayer: Prepare me to hear from the Bible

Lord, prepare me to hear from the Scriptures. Sometimes it can be easy to dismiss a passage that seems familiar. I have heard it before and so I disengage. Yet I know that your word is powerful and that it is calling me to live like Jesus. Do not let me turn off my ears so quickly. Help me to listen well and to respond with obedience. Let me see what you are doing through the Scriptures. You are working and I want to join you. Amen.

Prayer: Help me to appreciate rest for the journey

Lord, help me to appreciate the fact that you give me a resting place. God and I can pause, renewing myself for the journey. I know I will need to take to the road again. You told us as your followers to go into the world. This pause enables me to ready the sail. My true homeland is not here. In one sense, we as Christians are strangers in every land. We are pilgrims moving toward the abiding city of God. That is also true of me as an American follower of Jesus. No matter how much I love this land and its mission of the spread of liberty, it remains my temporary home. As I go, I will pray. As I go, love will be my song and life will be my celebration. I have the privilege to be one small part of the house of God that God is fashioning. I want to go with God this day. Amen.

Prayer: Give me a heart like Jesus

            Lord, I ask for a heart like that of Jesus. Give me a heart increasingly more ready to minister to others than to have others minister to me. Give me a heart increasingly moved by compassion toward the suffering and struggle of others. Give me a heart for seeing your presence in this world.

            I find it easy to focus upon my needs. Instead, raise my sights toward all those in my community and around the world that need to see the light of Christ through me. I pray for those lacking the basics of human life. I pray for the sick. I pray for prisoners. I pray for soldiers. I pray for those experiencing some form of alienation in our society. I pray for the lonely. I pray for the worried and anxious. I pray for persons living faithful lives in obscurity. I pray for the church here and around the world that faithfully carry out your calling.

            Give me a heart so full of love for Jesus Christ that my love overflows toward others. People will have more openness to hear what I say about Jesus when it comes in a package wrapped in love. I pray that this part of the body of Christ in which I participate may increasingly reflect the love that God has for the world. Grant that if the lines of my life fall upon pleasant places today, I will not become less sensitive to the needs of others. Rather, make me more inclined to help heal the burden they carry. If any adversity comes my way, help me to not brood upon it, as if I am the only person in the world who suffers. Give me the grace of involving myself in compassionate service to others that may need the gifts and graces I have.

            Amen.

I recoil at the notion that suffering is a natural part of this life

Lord, I admit that I recoil at the notion that suffering is a natural part of this life. I go to great lengths to avoid it. I want to spare those I love the pain, struggle, and discomfort of a human life. Yet, despite my best efforts, when suffering crashes upon me, I do everything in my power to mitigate its impact. I can try to anesthetize it. I may watch too much television. I may turn to alcohol. I may shop until I drop. I may distance myself from people or events that may offer the consolation and guidance I need. I ask today that you grant me the wisdom to embrace suffering as a gift. Help me to receive the lessons that only suffering can bring with a thankful heart. Help me to submit to the growth and maturity that difficulty can bring in my life. I ask for the courage to follow the footsteps of Jesus in this way as well, as he greeted his suffering with dignity, humility, and grace. Amen.

I am in this moment of prayer at your invitation

Lord, I am in this moment of prayer at your invitation. Your invitation met a longing of my heart for meaning, significance, and wholeness. I may not have known I searched for you, but I do now. You graciously came to me. You reached out to me, grabbed me, embraced me, and called me. You have done so in the words of a friend, in the words of a sermon, in unexpected moments of insight, in ordinary and extraordinary ways, you have shown yourself and called me to into your service. I am here in this moment of prayer because you have claimed my life. I ask you to stir up the gifts and passions that reside within to fulfill your call. Amen.

I ask forgiveness for my words

Lord, you are merciful. I ask your forgiveness for my words. I am grateful for the ability to speak. Through speaking, I communicate my hopes and dreams. I communicate my care for other people and the society in which I live. Through listening to the speaking of others, I come out of myself just a little, and engage in the world as another person sees it. Yet, so often, what I say is hurtful. I use words to tear down relationships, to make fun of others, and to show how incredibly witty I am. Sometimes, I know it the minute I say it. Other times, I may have fooled myself into thinking what I say is for their own good. Forgive me, Lord. Help me use my language to build up instead of tear down. Allow my words to show kindness and graciousness to others. Help me to live in love, as Christ has loved me. Amen.

Prayer: I bring to you persons who have sadden hearts

Lord, in Jesus your Son you have born the burdens of people and comforted the sorrowful. I bring to you today the persons in my life who have saddened hearts: _____, _____, and _____. Help me to mediate your strengthening sympathy to them. I ask you to grant that my companionship with you may continually refresh me so that the burdens of the world may not crush me. You are the one who bears the burdens that I cannot. You are their redeemer in a way I could never hope or desire to be. Only the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ can carry in your strong heart the woes of this world. In this faith, teach me to do my duty today, as I see it be your will, and save me from the depression of those who try to carry more than you have made people to bear. I look to you for help, O Lord. O Lamb of God, you are the one who bears the sins and burdens of this world. Amen.

Prayer: Fill me with love

            Lord, I ask you to fill me with love in such a way that I become an instrument of your divine healing grace today. Show me the particular ways in which I need to give this love today. Reveal to me the people in my life whose needs I may need to meet by the exercise of that love that you have awakened in me. Energize me, I pray, in doing those acts of love that can make this world a better place for the people in my life. Amen.

Prayer: Be Patient with Preachers

            Lord, be patient with those of us whom you have called to preach. I know I have fallen short. Sometimes, I have been too busy and therefore not responded in the best way to circumstances. Sometimes, I have been too lazy to do my homework. I know I have failed you when this has been true. I pray, then, for energy of body and mind with which to keep the faith you have called me to do. Even in retirement, I may have another way to fulfill your calling. I give thanks to you for this calling and pledge to renew my efforts to be faithful to that calling. Amen.

Deliver me from my unloveliness

            Lord, your love is unending. Deliver me from the unloveliness of this age. Empower me to love as deeply, broadly, fully, and as completely as you love me. When I encounter the shortcomings and failures of other people, endow me with a spirit of compassion and patience. When I meet those whose perspective or lifestyle is radically different from my own, enable me to see the limitations and inadequacies in my life. When other people disappoint me, remind me of all the ways in which I disappoint you by what I have done and said. Therefore, I might need to throw the mantle of charity over the weaknesses of others. When my sin saddens me, when my failures and shortcomings become clear to me, give me some measure of charity toward myself, even as you have shown unbounded charity toward me. Loving God, I would not know love had I not received your love. I am able to love because your love has flooded into my life in a way that redeems, sustains, and changes. I love because you first loved me. For your never-ending and forbearing love, I give thanks today and every day. Amen.

Prayer: I thank you for the gift of the Holy Spirit

Lord, today and every day, I thank you for the gift of your Spirit in me and in the world. Your Spirit can work in me with a soft but insistent voice, telling me that my life is empty and meaningless, but that there are chances of a new life waiting before the door of my inner self to fill its void and to conquer its dullness.  Your Spirit can work in me, awakening the desire to strive towards the sublime and against the profanity of the average day.  Your Spirit can give me the courage that says “Yes” to life in spite of the destructiveness I have experienced around me and within me.  Your Spirit can reveal to me that I have hurt somebody deeply, but can also give me the right word that reunites the other with me.  Your Spirit can make me love, with the divine love, someone whom I profoundly dislike or in whom I have no interest.  Your Spirit can conquer the sloth towards what I know is your aim for my life, and can transform my moods of aggression and depression into stability and serenity.  Your Spirit can liberate me from hidden enmity against those whom I love and from open vengefulness against those by whom I feel violated.  Your Spirit can give me the strength to throw off false anxieties and to take upon myself the anxiety that belongs to life itself.  Your Spirit can awaken me to sudden insight into the way I must take our world, and can open my eyes to a view of it that makes everything new.  Your Spirit can give me joy in the midst of ordinary routine as well as in the depth of sorrow.  Your Spirit can create warmth in the coldness I feel within me and around me, and can give me wisdom and strength where my human love towards a loved one has failed.  Your Spirit can throw me into a hell of despair about myself and then give me the certainty that life has accepted me when I felt totally rejected by others and even when I rejected myself.[1] I thank you for the gift of your Spirit. Amen.

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[1] Based upon Paul Tillich, Eternal Now, 1963. 

 

 

 

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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 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.