Prayers of Church & Community, August 27, 2023
Westminster Presbyterian Church
Eternal God, Father of all mercies, Mother of all hope and comfort, we gather here in this place with prayer and praise, praise for your goodness, and the goodness of our world … goodness at every turn, and goodness in our hearts.
And with prayer, O God, because evil is real … in war and famine, in greed and violence … and evil in our own hearts, O LORD … we can love, and then not so much … our sympathies can be great, and then we turn a harsh corner in thought and sensibility … we get on with our lives, keeping Christ at a distance, lest he disturb us … we, too, O God, can be the hypocrites who mouth the words of faith, but our hearts are far from you.
Forgive us, we pray … dampen the energies of evil, and arouse the courage of faith, hope, and love … strengthen our resolve to life lives worthy of Christ, consistent with Christ, lives that reflect his goodness and purpose, the power of his sacrifice, and the glory of his empty tomb.
We pray, O God, for our schools and teachers … for school boards and administrators … and for all our students, and their families. Help us, we pray, as nation, to take education seriously, to fund our schools liberally, to honor those who teach, to respect our librarians, and to cherish our youth, with the best we can provide.
We pray for those who have given their lives to hate and violence … we pray for those who suffer at their hands … we pray that our nation will continue to face and confess honestly the racial hatreds that have ruined so many lives … crippling our schools, churches, and communities, O God, and destroying hearts and minds.
We give thanks for good people everywhere, O God, they hold the light of truth high, they read and learn, they think and pray, they help those in need, they love their communities, they build bridges of understanding and compassion. Bless them, one and all.
We pray for our families, O God … our parents who care for us, our children and their wellbeing, our sisters and brothers … families, large and small, families, near and far, families of varying arrangement and relationship, families of love and goodness, families struggling and seeking … and the great family of faith that is ours in Christ … Sarah and Abraham, Lydia, the seller of purple, Paul the Apostle, all who have gone before us in the great procession of life and faith … help us, we pray, to be your family, here and now, devoted in prayer and praise, seeking justice and peace, with the light of Christ in our hearts, and the deeds of Christ in our hands and feet.
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, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread; and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors; and lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory, forever. Amen.
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