Sunday Prayers – January 25, 2009

We’re glad to be in your house this morning, O God.
To hear again the stories of Jesus …
To renew our promises to you and to one another …
To start all over again …
Or maybe to start for the first time … to follow Jesus our LORD.

We pray in a time of crisis, O God.
Our nation teeters on the brink of financial failure …
And for many today, as we pray,
They’ve already slipped over the edge.
The pink slip on the desk …
Bills piling up …
Foreclosure, or the threat of it.
For so many, O LORD, hard times are here …

We pray for our leadership.
For our President and his family.
For our members of Congress …
For Democrats and Republicans …
They have a lot on their plate …
To keep them awake at night …
May your Spirit help them.

We pray in time of global wariness …
Changes and shifts in the balance of power …
Peoples on the move …
For those of over 50, O God, it’s a very different world.
For those under 30, it’s the only world they’ve known – a world of many colors and many tongues; a world of many religions and philosophies, all bumping up against one another … an internet world, of text messaging and instant news …

But God, it’s still your world.
You are still at work in all things …
Your Holy Spirit strives with our spirit …
To give us vision and hope,
To point the way
You are still the God who pays us a visit in the cool of the day …
You are the God always born anew, in some Bethlehem, in the corners of our soul … in places unexpected … in times we cannot understand … you are still the God of mercy and kindness.

We pray, O God, in a time of judgment.
When greed and violence have come to naught.
When excess and pride have run their course.
When war and rumors of war have wearied the soul.
When godless dreams and self-serving interests have brought us nothing but chaff and straw.
When religion itself has proved shallow and wanting.

Your hand is upon the nations of the world, O God.
Your hand is heavy, as it should be.
To counsel and to correct.
To reveal the hollowness of the heart.
To undress the soul and reveal its poverty.
To awaken dormant dreams of a better world for all.
To restore our balance and rekindle the fires of justice.

We pray, O God, to seek your grace and kindness.
Not merely that we would be comfortable, but that we might be conformed – conformed to the image of your Son, Jesus our LORD.
We pray, O God, to have less of ourselves and more of you.
We pray, O God, that in hard times, we’ll keep our eyes upon you, and help others do the same.
We pray, O God, for you are, our rock and our redeemer.

In the name of our LORD Jesus Christ, who taught us to pray, saying, Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done …