A Prayer for Saturday, August 31, 2013

So That (Part 15)

O God,

Keep the cross of Jesus ever in our sight 

so that

we will always live in light of that cross by giving ourselves over to your love in ways that will show in how we think of, talk about, and treat other people.

Amen.

A Prayer for Friday, August 30, 2013

So That (Part 14)

O God,

Give us a heart like yours

so that

the things that break your heart will break our heart, too.

Amen.

A Prayer for Thursday, August 29, 2013

So That (Part 13)

O God,

Give us ever-increasing insight into who you are, who we are, and the way reality is

so that

we will give up the control that we don’t have in the first place.

Amen.

A Prayer for Wednesday, August 28, 2013

So That (Part 12)

O God,

Help us to keep our eyes on heaven

so that

we might bring a little bit of heaven to earth.

Amen.

A Prayer for Tuesday, August 27, 2013

So That (Part 11)

O God,

Endow us with an ever-increasing spirit of generosity

so that

we will think of others before we think of ourselves and, having thought of them, do all we can to help those who are in need.

Amen.

A Prayer for Monday, August 26, 2013

So That (Part 10)

O God,

Give us an ever-growing awareness of the ways in which we are connected to everything and everyone

so that

we will treat everything and everyone with the same respect and care that we would like to receive.

Amen.

A Prayer for Sunday, August 25, 2013

The Lord’s Day

O God,

Sometimes we pray that we will in our worship of you forget about ourselves and think only of you.

Forgive us for setting the bar so high that we could not possibly jump it; after all, we can’t forget that we are and we can’t worship you as anything other than who we are.

So instead, lead us to ask you to form us continually into people whose greatest desire is to know you, to love you, to worship you, and to serve you.

We don’t ask that you help us to forget who we are; we ask rather that you help us to be people who love you with everything that we are.

Amen.

A Prayer for Saturday, August 24, 2013

So That (Part 9)

O God,

Give us more and more trust in your big picture

so that

we will fret less and less over our little place in it.

Amen.

A Prayer for Friday, August 23, 2013

So That (Part 8)

O God,

Lead us to pray for our enemies as your Son told us to do

so that

we might grow to love our enemies as your Son told us to do.

Amen.

A Prayer for Thursday, August 22, 2013

So That (Part 7)

O God,

Give us courage, but give us even more love

so that

we can do the right thing in the right way.

Amen.

A Prayer for Wednesday, August 21, 2013

So That (Part 6)

O God,

Make us as fully aware as we can be of our own faults and failures

so that

we might be understanding of, patient with, and accepting of other people with their faults and failures.

Amen.

A Prayer for Tuesday, August 20, 2013

So That (Part 5)

O God,

Give us an ever-increasing awareness of your Spirit in us

so that

we can develop an ever-increasing ability to see with your eyes, to hear with your ears, to speak with your voice, and to love with your love.

Amen.

A Prayer for Monday, August 19, 2013

So That (Part 4)

O God,

Help us to trust you more and more

so that

we can gladly, boldly, and fearlessly live the life you have given us to live.

Amen.

A Prayer for Sunday, August 18, 2013

The Lord’s Day

O God,

Let today be a day of communion—communion with you and communion with each other.

Even as we draw sustenance and strength from you and from our fellow worshipers, help us to be at least equally interested—if not more interested—in how we can give of ourselves to you and to them.

Cause our communion to be a circle of true love and of gracious interdependence.

Amen.

A Prayer for Saturday, August 17, 2013

So That (Part 3)

O God,

Cause us to embrace your forgiveness of us

so that

we will gladly and freely offer our forgiveness to others.

Amen.

A Prayer for Friday, August 16, 2013

So That (Part 2)

O God,

Make us as fully aware as we can be of your great grace

so that

we can regard and treat others in light of that great grace.

Amen.

A Prayer for Thursday, August 15, 2013

So That (Part One)

O God,

Grant us calmness of soul and peace of mind

so that

we might confront the chaos of the world and the tensions of life with the full force of your grace, your love, and our being.

Amen.

A Prayer for Wednesday, August 14, 2013

Motives

O God,

By your grace and by your Spirit, move our motives toward being the kind of motives that accurately reflect our identity as your children and as Jesus’ followers.

First, though, make us more aware of our motives. Help us to grow past knee-jerk reactions and unthinking actions; make us ever cognizant of why we think what we think, say what we say, and do what we do.

Second, make us more sensitive to the ways in which our motives need to change and to mature. Move us past selfishness, fear, anxiety, and pride; move us toward selflessness, faith, hope, and humility.

Third, form our spirit so that love—your love—will be our sole motive.

Amen.

A Prayer for Tuesday, August 13, 2013

Immersed

O God,

If and when we were baptized, we may have been poured, sprinkled, or dunked; in whatever style we were baptized, it symbolized our immersion in the death of Christ and our being raised to new life in him.

Keep us ever aware that we have been so immersed.

It is easy for us to get immersed in things: in our work, in our pleasures, in our guilt, in our fear—in ourselves. Protect us from getting drowned in them.

Whatever we have going on, though, keep us constantly immersed in your life, your grace, your love, your peace, your hope, and your Spirit.

If we must drown, let us drown in what finally matters most.

Amen.

A Prayer for Monday, August 12, 2013

Wisdom

O God,

As we deal this week with the expected and the unexpected, with the planned and the unplanned, and with the routine and the irregular, grant us your wisdom.

Help us to stay in constant communion with your Spirit that we might have constant access to your guidance; keep us aware of the nudges and the shoves through which you lead us in the ways that we should go.

Then, having sensed the way you would have us to go, give us courage to step in that direction.

Amen.

A Prayer for Sunday, August 11, 2013

The Lord’s Day

O God,

Thank you for the privilege of worshiping a crucified Lord today.

Empower us, having worshiped a crucified Lord, to go out to live and serve as a crucified people.

Amen.

A Prayer for Saturday, August 10, 2013

Let

O God,

Let us die in you; let us live in you.

Let us die for you; let us live for you.

Let us die to self; let us live for you and for others.

Amen.

A Prayer for Friday, August 9, 2013

Less

O God,

Show us how to get by on less—

--on less stress,
--on less anxiety,
--on less fear,
--on less anger,
--on less doubt,
--on less control,
--on less opinionating,
--on less self-righteousness,
--on less posturing,
--on less stuff,

and on less of anything else that gets in the way of our loving you with all we are and of loving our neighbors like we love ourselves.

Amen.

A Prayer for Thursday, August 8, 2013

Loosen

O God,

Help us to loosen our grip.

Help us—

--to let go of things onto which we are not meant to hold;
--to give up our illusions of control;
--to trust in you rather than in ourselves;
--to live in joy instead of in fear; and
--to relax our hands, our heart, and our spirit.

Help us to loosen our grip because we know that you hold us securely in your strong hands.

Amen.

A Prayer for Wednesday, August 7, 2013

Listen

O God,

Help us to listen.

Help us to listen to—

--the wind in the trees,
--the rain on the roof,
--the birds in the air,
--the people in their pain,
--the children in their hunger,
--the oppressed in their oppression,
--the lonely in their loneliness, and
--the silence in its stillness.

Help us to laugh when that is the appropriate response to what we hear; help us to cry when that is the appropriate response to what we hear.

Help us to join in, either to sing along or to try to help make the song better.

And in everything we hear, help us to hear you …

Amen.

A Prayer for Tuesday, August 6, 2013

Look

O God,

Open our eyes to what surrounds us: a beautiful world, fascinating people, and you—your Spirit reminding us all the time that we are loved.

Open our eyes to what surrounds us: an endangered world, broken people, and you—your Spirit reminding us all the time that we both need help and need to help.

Help us to look honestly and courageously at what surrounds us; give us eyes to see.

Amen.

A Prayer for Monday, August 5, 2013

Flexibility

O God,

We have plans made for this week; who knows whether they will work out—or whether they even should work out? We plan as best we can but sometimes circumstances change things and sometimes things just don’t go as we thought they would. Sometimes they shouldn’t go like we thought we wanted them to go.

So give us flexibility; give us the ability to adapt and to adjust without losing our balance and without losing our temper.

Help us to grow to see the unpredictability of life as part of its fascination rather than as a source of frustration.

Amen.

A Prayer for Sunday, August 4, 2013

The Lord’s Day

O God,

How can we not praise you? How can we not praise you for who you are and for what you do? How can we not praise you for sending your Son Jesus Christ into this world to live, die, and rise to show and to give us the way to eternal life, to give us the way to know you? How can we not praise you for sending your Holy Spirit to comfort and challenge us?

So today we will praise you. Let our praise be acceptable to you.

At the same time, don’t let us make so much noise that we fail to hear and to heed your still, small voice.

Amen.

A Prayer for Saturday, August 3, 2013

Both, Part 20 (and Part Last)

O God,

Help us both to die and to live.

Help us—

--to die to self and to live to you;
--to die to greed and to live to generosity;
--to die to vengeance and to live to forgiveness;
--to die to legalism and to live to grace;
--to die to pride and to live to humility;
--to die to lust and to live to love;
--to die to envy and to live to gratitude;
--to die to taking and to live to giving;
--to die to our will and to live to your will; and
--to die to our way and to live to your way.

Help us, O God, both to die and to live; help us, O God, to die so that we can live …

Amen.

A Prayer for Friday, August 2, 2013

Both, Part 19

O God,

Help us to seek understanding of both what we can see and what we can’t see.

We can see our bodies, for example—at least we can see the skin that covers our bodies. But we can’t see our organs, our corpuscles, our arteries, our atoms, or our quarks. We can see the moon, some stars, and some other heavenly bodies, but we can’t see the vast majority of what makes up the universe. We can see some of what you are doing in our lives and in the world, but we can’t see much of it. We can see what other people let us see of their lives; we can’t see the rest of who they are. We can see the words on a page but we can’t see all that went into the making of the words and all that is potentially present on the other side of those words. We can see the physical but we can’t see the spiritual.

And yet, what we can’t see is there as surely as what we can see is there; what we can’t see is important as surely as what we can see is important.

Thank you for those who, because they have instruments, viewpoints, experiences, and education that we don’t have, are able to see what we can’t see and to help us to broaden our view.

Make us more aware of all that is there but keep us aware that we can’t know all that is there; give us a humble inquisitiveness …

Amen.

A Prayer for Thursday, August 1, 2013

Both, Part 18

O God,

Help us to live in light of the fact that we are both rich and poor.

Help us to live in joyful acceptance of the tremendous riches you have poured into our lives: your grace, your love, your mercy, your hope, your faith—in a word, yourself.

Help us also to live in full awareness of the poverty to which we are called—a poverty of spirit that causes us to be marked by humility, by empathy, by trust, and by compassion.

Help us to live in light of the fact that we are truly rich only when we are truly poor.

Amen.