Holy God:
We thank you for this place and the people that we find here. We thank you for the call you have placed upon each of us, for the call we have together. Give us soft hearts, open minds, and attentive ears today. Help us to give ourselves to you and your call upon us as freely as you gave yourself to us.
Only you know all that you are doing through this people. Only you know how many hearts are turned to you here, how many kind words and prayers are offered by this people all over our community, how many hungry are fed and disheartened are discouraged through unseen acts of kindness of theses people in their everyday lives.
Only you know what might be--what you might do in us, what might happen through us if we would but put your call first and foremost and serve you completely. You ahve a dram for a day when every tear would be dry, when you would be all in all, when there would be no hungry, when every person would sit down to eat under his own fruit tree, and every sword would be beaten into a plowshare. You have a dream for a day when your glory would be so revealed that the whole earth would see it together.
And yet, hope deferred makes the heart sick. Our dreams have often tarried, and we have often forgotten how to dream because it feels somehow easier than thinking that dreams will never come true. So teach us to cast aside our dreams and to dream with you. Teach us to abandon ourselves and to find the joy that comes from investing in your kingdom with all our hearts and lives.
Make us a haven of hope in the midst of despair. Make us a place of love in a loveless world. Make us a place that will be a family to those who are alone. May you kingdom come in us.
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ReplyDeleteI would like your permission to use this prayer (and credit you) for our Stewardship Sunday (11/14/2021 - 11/21/2021). Thank you.
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