Saturday, April 21, 2012

A Prayer from the Children of God

Dear God, We come to you today, your children, to praise you for who you are and what you have done for us. We thank you for calling us your own and leading us from darkness into light. We thank you for creating us, sustaining us, and redeeming us to eternal life through the sacrifice of Jesus. We thank you that even though we see dimly the truth of your glory, you continue to make yourself known to us and we look forward to the day that we may know you fully.

We come to you today God, your children, to ask forgiveness for falling short of your will and desire for us. Forgive us for our sinful actions, those we recognize and those we’re still too blind to see. Give us humility to recognize our own shortcomings and the grace to forgive them in others. Forgive us God for our sinful omissions. Lead us to always act in the way that you would guide us. Forgive us for failing to encourage and lift up. Forgive us for sitting by in the midst of injustice. Forgive us for thinking we’re better than we really are. Take away our arrogant spirits, quick to point out the mistakes we perceive in others. Replace it instead with an humble heart, recognizing that the battle is over, the victory is won.

We come to you today God, your children, to lift our needs to you. You are a good God, and provide for us well. We pray that you would hear the need of our hearts and show us your peace. We pray for our children. Help us to raise them that they might grow to reflect your glory, knowing that they too are yours. Give us the compassion to hold them tight when they are vulnerable and give us the wisdom to let them go when they are strong.

 God, we come to you today, thankful that we are your children, but knowing that we fall short of the honor of that title. For this we are indebted to you for providing the sacrifice that would clean our dirty souls that we might present ourselves to you, the living God through prayers such as this, that you might hear our voice and speak to us in return the good word needed in our ear.

(1 John 3:1-7)

Sunday, March 04, 2012

What's more important, the thing on the inside they're trying to protect or the "danger" on the outside they're protecting it from?
Is this really Virginia?

Saturday, January 28, 2012

A Prayer for Grace

Dear God,

We thank you for your abundant grace so freely given to our broken selves and world.  While we wait for eternity to fully realize the depth of your forgiveness and grace, we pray that we might learn to draw strength from it today.  We work so hard to be right, but let us not forget the priority of compassion and forgiveness.  Fill us with your grace so that we might truly put others before ourselves.  Your grace allows us to find contentment.  Free us from unrestrained consumption, the belief that because it is available that it is good.  Remind us that though all things may be permissible, that all things are not profitable.  Give us grace to resist our temptations.  We rely on our own strength and will too often seeking our own definition of good.  Without your grace, no amount of good is good enough, for only through you can we find redemption.

We lift to you this morning our burdens and needs God.  We know that you hear the cry of our heart.  Give us ears to hear and a heart to listen in return.  Your way is the way of peace and fulfillment God, we pray that you set our feet on that path as we look to our Savior Jesus as our guide.  We pray for our world, and troubles faced by our brothers and sisters of which we’re not even aware.  We pray for our nation and thank you for a system in which we our voices may be heard.  May our voices reflect the voice of hope, joy, peace, and love.  We pray for our community that we might forge relationships and connections that allow us to share life together, celebrating the good and mourning our losses, and continually striving to realize thy kingdom come.  We pray for ourselves, that you would reach into our very souls and shape us into the people you would have us to be for we realize that community, nation, and world will never be any better than the individuals who populate them.

We pray for your blessing God.  Give us knowledge for our minds, strength for our bodies, and courage and compassion for our hearts.  We ask for this not for our glory, but yours, that we might be your people in this world.  You are our God and for this we are thankful. 

Amen.