Archive for the ‘Prayer’ Category

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From the Electoral Season, Save Us

October 31, 2012

Lord as we approach this election, do not let us despair or be overtaken by fear.  Help us instead to embrace hope, and to trust in your words:  “There is surely a future hope for you and your hope will not be cut off.”  Pr. 23:18.

Do not let us be so overcome by adversity that we fail to vote or over-rely on simplistic pitches.  Do not let hypocrisy, arrogance,  mendacity, or hollow promises mislead us.  Let us fend off both cynicism and hate.  From a love of money, save us.

Give us the courage to acknowledge our circumstances are complex, and that real solutions will take sacrifice, sharing, hard work and a willingness to work with others.  Help us elect leaders who will place our common good over partisan loyalties and who will care for us all.  Fill us with compassion and direct us to the fulfilling of your purpose. Help us to trust in you and to encourage one another.

Grant us wisdom O Lord.  Amen

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Lead Us Forward

May 28, 2012

This Pentecost, O Lord, we celebrate that you are with us, and in us, and that you will never leave us.  Help us to hear and to heed your voice within.  Guide us and challenge us until we are, both in our public and private lives,

“Free from anger, hatred and passion; free from ill will, jealousy and envy; free from transgression, criticism and gossip; free from malice, animosity and grudges. . .”*

As we listen to the news and listen to the candidates, as we sift through what we hear, and as we  make choices, help us to value civility, community, and thoughtfulness.  Help us to test our fears against facts, and be willing to change. Guide us, O Lord, and move us forward.

Amen

*Quote from Julian Ibarra Zapata, 20th Century Disciples pastor  Juarez, Mexico.

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Hope For The New Year

January 12, 2012

“A thrill of hope, the weary world rejoices, for yonder breaks a new and glorious morn.”  O Holy Night (a Christmas carol)

Lord your birth reminds us that amidst the anxiety, fear, anger, and disappointment of our political life, there is hope.  We have the opportunity to change our ways, to seek truth, to offer compassion, to pursue justice, to speak with kindness and civility even where we don’t agree.  One person can shine a light into the darkness and together we create new patterns and a better future for all.   Show us your ways O Lord, teach us your paths, and strengthen us for the year ahead.

Amen

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Needing God’s Guidance

March 14, 2011

Lord, as we see the hungry and those without health care,

Teach us compassion.

As our economy begins to grow in fits and starts, leaving many behind,

Teach us to share.

As media reports excite rather than educate,

Lead us toward wisdom.

As individual citizens are asked to cut back or give more while flaws in our economic and regulatory systems go uncorrected,

Help us pursue justice.

As we face an uncertain future,

Fill us with hope and help us to follow your word.

Let us hear your voice and learn to listen to each other.  Harden not our hearts.

Have mercy on us all O Lord.

Amen.

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Civility In the New Year

January 20, 2011

But now you must rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips.  Do not lie to each other . . . Colossians 3:8-9

At the start of a new year we begin with shots in Tuscon bringing grief, recriminations, calls for reconciliation, and bewilderment.

Lord, help us to be a better people than we are.

Help us to seek wisdom over partisan power, justice over greed, forgiveness over hate.  Help us to be honest with ourselves and with others, both as to what we think we know and what we do not.  Comfort all who grieve for the victims of violence.  And as we mourn, fill us also with compassion for those whose mental illness goes untreated, those who cannot find work, those who struggle to find food and shelter, and those who only fear the future.  Turn us from fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy.  Turn us towards kindness, patience, self-control, and the desire to live together in peace. (Galatians 5:19-23).  Equip us to find new ways of living together and new ways of sharing and service.

Show us your ways, O Lord, teach us your paths; guide us in your truth and teach us, for you are God our Savior and our hope is in you all day long. Ps. 25:4-5

We can be a better people than we have been.  Help us to change O Lord.

Amen

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Good News

December 27, 2010

But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid.  I will bring you news of great joy that will be for all the people.” Luke 2:10

The good news is this:  God is with us.  Our troubles will not last.  We will move forward.  We are not alone.  God is with us, and God will see us through.  Amen

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Truth and Courage

October 17, 2010

“I am a firm believer in people.  If given truth, they can be depended upon to meet any national crisis. The great point is to bring them the real facts. ”  Abraham Lincoln

Lord, we can be a hardheaded, stiff-necked people, resistant to your word. (Ex. 32:9, Heb. 3:8)

We are often a fearful people, easily swayed by those who would manipulate and divide.

We can be a selfish people, obsessed with material comfort.

We are often an angry people, more willing to blame others than to accept our own accountability in creating a world where so many suffer.

Help us O Lord. Give us the courage to face real facts and look for long term solutions.

Give us the compassion to share our material wealth with those who have little or none.

Teach us to forgive, and to look at the plank in our own eye before pointing out the splinter in others. (Lk. 6:42)

Help us to listen, with open hearts and minds, to the cries of those around us.

Help us to be worthy of the trust and hopes of those who came before us.

Lead us forward O Lord.

Amen.

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Loving, With All of Our Mind

September 11, 2010

Jesus replied: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” Matthew 22:37

Help us O Lord to love you with all of our mind. Help us to challenge the “facts” we are fed when others would lead us astray. Teach us to ask hard questions, to study our history, to learn from our lapses, and to imagine how our world might be if we followed your message of love, compassion, and self-control.  Save us from demagogues who would narrow our vision with appeals to fear and anger.  Turn us from our eagerness to grasp at easy but false truths. Renew in us a love of learning and a willingness to explore new information and new ideas.  Help us to turn away from false gods and counterfeit promises.  Turn us instead to mercy, to justice, and to a closer walk with you.  Guide us, O Lord.  Amen

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Laying Down Our Lives

August 16, 2010

Dear friends, I am not writing you a new command but an old one, which you have had since the beginning. . . . This is the message you have heard from the beginning: We should love one another. . . . This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers. . . . Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth.  1 John 2:7; 3:11, 16, 18.

Who is our brother?  Not just the one who looks like us or worships with us or lives like us.  Luke 10:25-37.   Lord, help us to see our common humanity.  Let us look with compassion on those who seek safety and security in a new country.  Help us to understand and accept those who would build a new house of worship — different from ours yet with a message of peace and tolerance that mirrors your own.  Help us to meet the needs of those who struggle to find food and shelter, and to build basic skills.  When we distort facts for partisan ends, rely on our own faith as a reason to hate, judge without mercy, and hold fast to our fears, forgive us O Lord.  Forgive us and help us, through love, service and self-control, to find the peace, patience, kindness, and goodness that are the fruit of your Spirit.  Galatians 5:22-23.  Show us the better way O Lord, for our hope is in you.  Ps. 25:4-5.

Amen.

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Those Who Went Before Us

May 31, 2010

Lord, on this Memorial Day we give you thanks for those who gave us life, who taught us how to live, and whose memories bring both pain and laughter.  We thank you for the stories that shape our lives, and the gift of photography that helps us to understand our past.  We thank you for our families and our friends O Lord.

On this Memorial Day we give you thanks for those who fight for our country and those who have died in its service.  Let us be ever aware of their sacrifice and the full costs of war.  Help us be wise in our use of the freedoms they defend and in the policies we choose.  Help us to be generous in our support of those who serve and of their friends and families.  Help us to pursue peace in our lifetimes O Lord.

And on this Memorial Day we give you thanks O Lord for your presence in our lives and for your promise of eternal life.  Help us to follow in your ways, to lean not on our own understanding, and to find comfort and meaning in our memories.  Help us to guide our children to value the past, find hope for the future, and follow us in faith.

We thank you O Lord, for lives present and past, and for the cycle of life that keeps us searching for you.

Amen

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