Thursday, April 30, 2015

A Prayer for Thursday, April 30, 2015

Twenty-Sixth Day of Easter

O God,

While we look forward to the day when we will be raised to be for all time the most whole and complete versions of ourselves that we can be, we acknowledge that we cannot know what that life will be like. We read in your Book that our resurrection bodies will be like that of Christ our Lord—and that is enough for us to know.

Let our anticipation of that coming life inspire us, but keep us from needless and pointless speculation about what it will be like.

Instead, help us to focus our attention and energy on living the life that is ours to live now; help us to remember that we have already been raised to walk in newness of life and help us actually to live as people who have been raised to new life in Christ.

Let us think like people who have been raised to walk in newness of life.
Let us talk like people who have been raised to walk in newness of life.
Let us forgive like people who have been raised to walk in newness of life.
Let us trust like people who have been raised to walk in newness of life.
Let us hope like people who have been raised to walk in newness of life.
Let us act like people who have been raised to walk in newness of life.
Let us help like people who have been raised to walk in newness of life.
Let us live like people who have been raised to walk in newness of life.

Amen.

Wednesday, April 29, 2015

A Prayer for Wednesday, April 29, 2015

Twenty-Fifth Day of Easter

O God,

Sometimes we get buried.

We get buried under the rubble left in the wake of a natural disaster;
we get buried under the years of tensions and frustrations in our community;
we get buried under layers of fear and disappointment in our lives;
we get buried under the masks that we have donned to hide our true selves;
we get buried under the lies we have told and the corners we have cut;
we get buried under the expectations that we have allowed others to place on us.

Sometimes we get buried.

Help us to come out from under whatever has buried us.

But when we do come out from under whatever has buried us,

help us to come out in ways that befit true resurrection;
help us to come out in ways that reflect the presence of your life and love in us;
help us to come out with a changed perspective on and with an altered approach to life.

Help us to come out embracing others rather than striking out at them.
Help us to come out trusting you rather than depending on ourselves.
Help us to come out ready to help rather than willing to hurt.
Help us to come out with an eternal perspective rather than a temporal mindset.
Help us to come out with new approaches rather than with the same old patterns.

Thank you, O God, for raising us from what has buried us.

Let our lives show our awareness of and gratitude for the new chance you have given us …

Amen.

Tuesday, April 28, 2015

A Prayer for Tuesday, April 28, 2015

Twenty-Fourth Day of Easter

O God,

Since Jesus died and rose again to make it possible for us to have eternal life—a life in which we know you in your selfless and sacrificial love as lived out by your Son Jesus Christ and in which we live in and out of that love—help us to embrace eternal life fully so that we might be witnesses to and conduits for your life and love.

Help us by our attitudes, by our motives, by our words, by our reactions, and by our actions to bring life and hope to bear in a culture that is so beset by, fascinated with, and tormented by death and despair.

Amen.

Monday, April 27, 2015

A Prayer for Monday, April 27, 2015

Twenty-Third Day of Easter

O God,

When this week is over, let me be more alive than I am here at its beginning.

Help me to put to death today and every day the things that inhibit the development of real life: pride, envy, anger, selfishness, vengeance, fear, despair, hate, and apathy.

Help me to make a little progress today and every day in the things that contribute to real life: grace, mercy, hope, faith, forgiveness, service, and love.

When this week is over, O God, let me be more alive than I have ever been before …

Amen.

Sunday, April 26, 2015

A Prayer for Sunday, April 26, 2015

Fourth Sunday of Easter

O God,

We praise you today because Jesus Christ has been raised from the dead, because he still lives, and because he will live forever.

We praise you today because through Jesus Christ our resurrected Lord we will be raised from the dead and because in him we have been raised to walk in newness of life.

Let our worship today celebrate the reality of resurrection and anticipate the time when we will be raised.

Let our living every day reflect the reality of resurrection and demonstrate the fact that we have been raised.

Amen.

Saturday, April 25, 2015

A Prayer for Saturday, April 25, 2015

Twenty-First Day of Easter

O God,

So much goes into making me who I am; genetics, upbringing, location, education, ethnicity, nationality, and experience combine, along with many other factors, to form me into the person that I am and that I am becoming.

Thank you, O God, for the gift of being who I am.

Help me always to remember that you also have a hand in shaping me into me. Thank you for the love and grace that you show me in letting me be me; thank you for the love and grace you show me in helping me to continue to grow in being me.

Help me by your love and grace always to be growing into the best version of me that I can possibly be.

Help me not to reject the good gift of being who I am by trying to be someone I am not.

Thank you that through the presence of the crucified and resurrected Christ in my life I can die to the parts of me—the pride, the selfishness, the apathy—that keep me from being my true self and that I can rise to live in ways—in humility, in grace, in selflessness, in love—that reveal the true self that I am in you.

Help me to be open to the new and real life that is mine in you …

Amen.

Friday, April 24, 2015

A Prayer for Friday, April 24, 2015

Twentieth Day of Easter

O God,

Help us, in the midst of this culture that glorifies death, to bear witness to life.

Help us, in the midst of this culture that seeks control, to bear witness to freedom.

Help us, in the midst of this culture that perpetuates adolescence, to bear witness to maturity.

Help us, in the midst of this culture that encourages division, to bear witness to unity.

Help us, in the midst of this culture that promotes numbness, to bear witness to compassion.

Help us, in the midst of this culture that fosters escapism, to bear witness to involvement.

Help us, in the midst of this culture that cultivates apathy, to bear witness to love.

Amen.

Thursday, April 23, 2015

A Prayer for Thursday, April 23, 2015

Nineteenth Day of Easter

O God,

Let my gratitude for all I receive generate generosity with all I have.

Let the grace that I receive generate graciousness toward all I meet.

Let the love that I experience generate love toward all I know.

Let the troubles that I encounter generate compassion toward all who are in trouble.

Let the struggles that I encounter generate understanding for all who struggle.

Let the life that I live generate community with all who are living their lives.

Amen.

Wednesday, April 22, 2015

A Prayer for Wednesday, April 22, 2015

Eighteenth Day of Easter

O God,

Help us to be proponents of life.

Help us to promote, to protect, to preserve, and to propagate life in all of the positive ways that we can.

Give us a vision of what it means to live the eternal and the abundant life; give us a vision of how everlasting life and temporal life go together and contribute to each other.

Help us to see beyond this life in ways that lead us to live this life for all it's worth.

Thank you that one day we will be more fully alive than we can imagine; thank you also that in this life we can be more fully alive than we imagine.

Show us how to share the benefits of such life with everyone and in every way that we can ...

Amen.

Tuesday, April 21, 2015

A Prayer for Tuesday, April 21, 2015

Seventeenth Day of Easter

O God,

We praise you that your Son Jesus humbled himself to the point of death on the cross and that you then raised him up.

Help us to think, to speak, and to act in ways that demonstrate the fact that we have been crucified with Christ and that we have been raised to new life in him.

Help us by the grace of Christ who is in us to humble ourselves--not for the sake of reward but for the sake of service, not for the sake of gain but for the sake of sacrifice, and not for the sake of recognition but for the sake of love--and in humbling ourselves let us experience the joy of being lifted up by you.

Amen.

Monday, April 20, 2015

A Prayer for Monday, April 20, 2015

Sixteenth Day of Easter

O God,

Grant that in all that we think, say, or do

we will contribute to the building and enlarging of life,
we will build people up and not tear them down,
we will be part of the solution to the problems created by those who tear people down, who build walls between people, and who foster hostility and hate,
we will honor and bear witness to you our God whose primary characteristic is love,
we will follow Jesus our Lord who emptied himself and who came not to be served but to serve.

Amen.


Sunday, April 19, 2015

A Prayer for Sunday, April 19, 2015

Third Sunday of Easter

O God,

Let our worship of you today be worship in which we are more aware than we have ever been of the reality of the presence of the risen Christ with us and among us.

Let our following of Jesus during this week be following in which we are more aware than we have ever been of the reality of the presence of the risen Christ with us and among us.

Let our encounters with people during this week be encounters in which we are more aware than we have ever been of the reality of the presence of the risen Christ with us and among us.

Let our living of life during this week be living in which we are more aware than we have ever been of the reality of the presence of the risen Christ with us and among us …

Amen.

Saturday, April 18, 2015

A Prayer for Saturday, April 18, 2015

Fourteenth Day of Easter

O God,

Thank you that by your grace
the resurrected Christ lives in me.

I don’t understand how it could be
but I do celebrate that it is.

I do not believe that the goal of Christ in me
to make me into a carbon copy of Jesus
(as if that would be possible, anyway!).

I do believe that the goal of Christ in me
is to make me into the best—the most aware,
the most loving, the most merciful, the most purposeful—
version of myself that I can be.

I also believe that the goal of Christ in me
is to connect me with the life that gives life
to the universe, to all of life, and to my life—
the very life of God, the life that is eternal life.

So, O God, make me fully aware of Christ in me.
But make me fully aware also of me in Christ …

Amen.

Friday, April 17, 2015

A Prayer for Friday, April 17, 2015

Thirteenth Day of Easter

O God,

We praise you for your great grace in which you come to us so that we can know you and in knowing you know real and eternal life.

We praise you for your crucified and resurrected Son Jesus Christ who by his sojourn on Earth and by his presence with us makes it possible for us to know you.

Help us to grow in our knowledge of you—in our personal and intimate relationship with you—that we might become more and more alive and that we might in our living reflect more and more of your life and love.

Let the life of the resurrected Lord move more and more into the center of our being; from that center let his life spread out into our life until he permeates it all. Then let his life keep on moving outward from us so that it touches everything we touch, affects every person we affect, and impacts every situation that we encounter.

Amen.

Thursday, April 16, 2015

A Prayer for Thursday, April 16, 2015

Twelfth Day of Easter

O God,

Help me to remember that “I have been crucified with Christ and it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me.” Help me also to remember that “the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me” (Galatians 2:19b-20).

Help me to remember that your eternal life—the life that is outside of time, the most real life there is, the life that has ultimate meaning—is in me through the presence of the crucified and resurrected Christ. Help me to live with ever-growing trust in Christ who loved me enough to give himself up for me that I might have ever-increasing access to your life through him.

Help me to live my life in ways that demonstrate that I am living my life in his strength rather than in my own.

Help me to live his life through my life that it might become natural for me to love other people and to give myself for them.

Amen.

Wednesday, April 15, 2015

A Prayer for Wednesday, April 15, 2015

Eleventh Day of Easter

O God,

We praise you because you are, your Son said, God not of the dead but of the living.

Thank you for all the ways that you let us know that we are among the living. Thank you for our sense of the presence of your Spirit, for our awareness of the presence of your love, and for our experience of the presence of your life.

Help us to live in ways that reflect the reality that we are among the living; help us to live in ways that are guided by your Spirit, that are inspired by your love, and that are energized by your life.

Let us grow toward full awareness of how alive we are in you.
Let us grow toward a mature lifestyle of living in you.

As we grow in being truly alive, let our life in you show itself in ever-increasing humility, sensitivity, compassion, sacrifice, forgiveness, trust, hope, and peace.

Amen.

Tuesday, April 14, 2015

A Prayer for Tuesday, April 14, 2015

Tenth Day of Easter

O God,

What a shame it would be if I had a billion dollars in my pocket but never put my hand in my pocket to make use of what was there! What a shame to have such resources with which to do so much good but never to take advantage of them!

Resurrection power is worth far more than a billion dollars; we can do more good through the power of the resurrection than we can with any other resource.

Forgive us for not taking full advantage of and making full use of the power of resurrection that is present in us through the resurrected Christ. Forgive us for not looking into our spirit to see what is there; forgive us for not turning it loose in our lives and in the world.

Help us to live with full awareness of the presence of the resurrected Christ in our lives; help us to live with full commitment to unleashing the reality of resurrection in the ways that we live—and especially in the ways that we love.

Amen.

Monday, April 13, 2015

A Prayer for Monday, April 13, 2015

Ninth Day of Easter

O God,

Thank you for the great future that is ours because of the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. Help us to live each day in anticipation of what is to come. Cause us to be constantly aware that we will be raised to new life and that we will be with you forever. Help us to trust you to make all things as they should be. Let our lives be lived in great hope …

Thank you for the great present that is ours because of the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. Help us to live each day in realization of what already is. Cause us to be constantly aware that we have been raised in Christ and that you are with us always. Help us to do all that we can to make things more like they should be. Let us live our lives in great faith …

Amen.

Sunday, April 12, 2015

A Prayer for Sunday, April 12, 2015

Second Sunday of Easter

O God,

Let our worship of you today be a true celebration of the ongoing presence of the resurrected Christ in, with, and among us.

Let our thoughts, motives, words, and actions during this week be a true reflection of the ongoing presence of the resurrected Christ in, with, and among us.

We praise you today because he lives.

We praise you today because he lives in us.

We praise you today because we live in him …

Amen.

Saturday, April 11, 2015

A Prayer for Saturday, April 11, 2015

Seventh Day of Easter

O God,

We believe and trust that one day you will raise us from the dead.

Help us to believe and trust that in this day you can cause us to rise above those conditions of our heart and mind that rob us of real life and that tempt us to try to take life away from others.

Help us to believe and trust that you can cause us to rise

above envy,
above apathy,
above hate,
above judgmentalism,
above selfishness,
above ignorance, and
above arrogance.

Then let us live in light of the fact that you have delivered us from such death-dealing attitudes and perspectives …

Amen.

Friday, April 10, 2015

A Prayer for Friday, April 10, 2015

Sixth Day of Easter

O God,

Teach us how to live out the words of John: “We know that we have passed from death to life because we love one another” (1 John 3:14a).

Teach us how to live out the truth that by the power and presence of the resurrected Christ we have been raised to walk in newness of life and so we are able to love another as Christ loved us. Teach us how to add willingness to our ability so that we will indeed and in deeds love one another.

Empower us through the presence of the resurrected Christ to love as he loved; empower us to lay down our lives—to lay down our ego, our pride, our focus on self—for the sake of one another.

Help us to be so joined to the resurrected Christ and to be so filled with his life and love that our selfish nature becomes pushed out by the selfless nature that leads us to give our lives away sacrificially rather than to cling to our lives protectively.

Amen.

Thursday, April 9, 2015

A Prayer for Thursday, April 9, 2015

Fifth Day of Easter

O God,

Thank you for the new life—for the real life—that I have found in the resurrected Christ. Help me to affirm and to foster life in all that I say and do.

Don’t let me say or do anything that harms life and that contributes to death; don’t let me say or do anything that negates, lessens, or harms anyone’s life. Don’t let me participate, either through action or through a failure to act, in a mindset or life stance that treats any other person as less than your beloved child, as less significant than I am, or even as less than human.

Help me instead to see people as you see them; help me to see them as your beloved creation for whom Jesus died on the cross and to whom you offer through his resurrection a life that is full and free. Help me to be willing to give up my life—my pride, my self-centeredness, my arrogance—for their sake. Help me to want nothing less for them than the blessed life that I have been given through the resurrected Christ.

Remove death so far from me that I have none to inflict on anybody else.

Fill me so full of life that it overflows onto everyone I encounter …

Amen.

Wednesday, April 8, 2015

A Prayer for Wednesday, April 8, 2015

Fourth Day of Easter

O God,

Put to death what is in us
that drains life from us:

our pride,
our self-centeredness,
our delusions of superiority,
our masks,
our judgmentalism,
our fear,
our anxiety, and
our arrogance.

Bring to life what is in us
that enlarges life in us:

trust,
humility,
mercy,
understanding,
sympathy,
empathy,
acceptance,
grace,
hope, and
love.

Amen.

Tuesday, April 7, 2015

A Prayer for Tuesday, April 7, 2015

Third Day of Easter

O God,

It is easy for us to become fearful about the future or to become resigned to what nearly everyone seems to assume will be a declining situation.

Help us to grow through fear to faith and through resignation to determination.

Help us to trust in the future to which the resurrection of Jesus points us; help us to be determined to work by the power of the resurrected Christ at transforming the present as much as we can.

Let our experience of and with the resurrected Christ drive away despair and fatalism.

Let our experience of and with the resurrected Christ push us toward hope and activism.

Amen.

Monday, April 6, 2015

A Prayer for Monday, April 6, 2015

Second Day of Easter

O God,

Let the new life
that is ours because of
the resurrection of Jesus Christ
be realized in

our thoughts,
our feelings,
our motives,
our perspectives,
our decisions,
our choices,
our actions,
our habits,
our practices,
our responses,
and
our relationships.

In the name of
our resurrected Lord,

Amen.

Sunday, April 5, 2015

A Prayer for Sunday, April 5, 2015

Easter Sunday

O God,

We praise you for raising Jesus Christ from the grave.

We praise you that through Christ you will raise us from our graves.

We praise you that in Christ we have already been raised to walk in newness of life.

We praise you that the resurrected Christ lives in, with, and among us.

We praise you today for these and for all other things that Easter means.

Let our lives show our praise …

Amen.

Saturday, April 4, 2015

A Prayer for Saturday, April 4, 2015

Holy Saturday/Fortieth Day of Lent

O God,

We know what it feels like to wake up on and to try to get through the day after a loved one dies; we are familiar with the shock, numbness, and exhaustion that come with grief. So we can relate on some level to what the disciples of Jesus were going through on the day after his crucifixion.

In their case, though, a lot died with Jesus besides their personal relationships with him; in particular, their hopes that Jesus might be the Messiah—that he might be the one to set Israel free from the Romans and from everybody and everything else—died with him.

We know what they did not yet know; we know what it coming tomorrow. But help us on this day not to jump ahead to tomorrow. Help us to realize and to ponder the ways in which the death of Jesus does not fit the kind of Messiah that we, despite all the evidence that tells us we are wrong, still want him to be.

Help us to remember, as we ponder Jesus lying dead in the tomb, that if we follow him then we have died with him. Before we turn to our celebration of new life in him, help us to focus on his summons to come die with him. Help us by your grace to put to death our pride, our self-centeredness, and our delusions of grandeur that we might truly rise to a new life of grace, humility, and love.

Amen.

Friday, April 3, 2015

A Prayer for Friday, April 3, 2015

Good Friday/Thirty-Ninth Day of Lent

O God,

In the cross of Christ we glory.

We glory in the great grace you showed in the cross of Christ. We praise you that in dying on the cross Jesus made possible our forgiveness, our salvation, and our access to you.

We praise you that by your grace Christ died for us.

But do we praise you that by your grace we have died with Christ? Do we praise you that by your grace we have taken up our cross and are following him? Do we praise you by your grace we are losing our lives for his sake—and are thereby finding them?

Do we glory in our ongoing participation in the death of Christ on the cross?

We glory in what we gain from the cross but do we glory in what we give—and even in what we lose— through the cross?

On this day on which we glory in the cross a little more than we do on other days, give us grace to glory in it as Christians who have progressed in our following of Christ to the point that we are able and willing to praise you even more for what the cross enables us to do for you and for others than we do in what the cross has done for us.

Help us to glory in the humility and love—in the willingness and even the compulsion to love you with all we are and to love others so much that we think more highly of them than we do of ourselves and that we put their needs ahead of our own— that are ours because of the cross.

In the name of our crucified Lord we pray,

Amen.

Thursday, April 2, 2015

A Prayer for Thursday, April 2, 2015

Thirty-Eighth Day of Lent/Maundy Thursday

O God,

Attune our hearts to your way in the world
as shown to us by Jesus Christ your Son and our Lord.

Attune our hearts to your way in the world
which is the way of humility, of service, and of love.

Attune our hearts to your way in the world
which is the way of thinking more of others than of ourselves.

Attune our hearts to your way in the world
which is the way of putting the needs of others ahead of ours.

Attune our hearts to your way in the world
which is the way of emptying ourselves of
self-interest and of self-preservation so we can
love you fully and love each other sacrificially.

As our hearts become more attuned to your way in the world,
let our actions be ongoing demonstrations of your way in the world.

Then they’ll know we are Christians by our love …

Amen.

Wednesday, April 1, 2015

A Prayer for Wednesday, April 1, 2015

Thirty-Seventh Day of Lent/Wednesday of Holy Week

O God,

How do we get ready for what’s coming?

How do we get ready for what’s coming this week? How do we get ready to experience the betrayal, the crucifixion, and the burial of our Lord?

How do we get ready to experience those events in all of their power and wonder when we are so familiar with the stories? How do we get ready to give our lives over to the One who suffered and died when we are so caught up in attaining comfort and safety? How do we get ready to take up our cross and follow the One who died on the Cross when we are so focused on self-preservation and self-fulfillment?

Show us how to get ready for what’s coming this week.

Show us how to get ready to experience the pain and power of the crucifixion of Jesus and how to get ready to accept and live out that pain and power in our own lives.

Make us ready for what’s coming …

Amen.