April 26, 2020

Pastoral Prayer

Creating God, we marvel at the bounty and beauty of the world you have made: the majesty of mountains and fluttering antics of hummingbirds, the strength of elephants and the fragility of a flower petal, the searing heat of the desert and the frigid cold of blizzards, the immensity of sequoias and the microscopic wonder of a single cell. We marvel that ice cream and cheese, steak and milk can all begin in the same creature, and that that creature began in you. Open our eyes to the beauty and wonder of your creation. Slow us enough to see and comprehend the miracle of all you have made. And teach us how to honor the assignment you have given us, the need to care and protect, to honor and preserve, to nurture and cherish the gift of your heart and the work of your hand.

We continue to pray for ourselves and for our world in these days of pandemic. Number counts are beginning to slow their climb, and for that we give thanks as we feel ourselves begin to breathe again, but we also know people continue to suffer and die cut off from their families, that medical personnel continue to work and serve and put themselves in harms’ way, that workers in stores and meat plants, truck drivers and custodians remain vulnerable, and we continue to ask for your healing and protection for all who are at risk. We give thanks for all those who search for a vaccine and ways to treat this virus, and ask you to lead them along the paths that will bear fruit and provide the tools we crave. And we pray for the debate that rages between and among us: the impatience to get back to work and the caution to not move too soon, to find ways to protect both the financially and medically vulnerable. Grant us your wisdom, O God, that we might not pit one need against another, but with your help discover new and creative ways to care for one another. By your grace, help us to use this time to knit us together as one people, not to dig deeper trenches to divide and alienate us from one another.

Our needs are many, and our prayers are far reaching. You know well the joys and gratitudes that we bring before you (pause) as well as the needs and hurts (pause). Hear us. Guide and bless us. Heal and hold us. Wrap us in your wisdom and enfold us in your embrace. And hear us as we pray together the prayer that Jesus taught: Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed by 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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