Sunday, September 9, 2001
Offered by John A. Cairns, Dean, Academy for Faith and Life

God of all the days and seasons, we rejoice in this day set aside for worship. We celebrate the privilege we share: to gather with one another in this place, to listen for your word, to shape our response, to sing our songs of praise. Add our voices to those of our sisters and brothers near and far, that we might be a great cloud of witnesses to Jesus Christ this day, we pray.

God of all the days and seasons, this is the beginning of a new season for many of us—a time to return to school, to return to busy schedules, to return to cooler nights and football games and the last ears of fresh corn. Renew us with the season, we pray. Enable us to draw fresh energy for our various journeys. May our new and renewed enterprises bless us and others and advance your kingdom, as we seek to follow you into the approaching autumn.

God of all the days and seasons, we have had too many days of pain and uncertainty. For ourselves and for our family and friends who are dear to us, we pray for your healing presence and for personal peace. Many of us have had too much suffering—from the maladies of getting older, from the effects of abusive behaviors, from cancers and coronaries, from depression and disorientation. Come with healing and hope, O Lord. Make all our moments calm and bright and strong and healthy, we pray.

God of all the days and seasons, we have lived too long in a season of war. We have grown used to the violence, immune to the hatred that fills our lives and our language. We despair over the situations in the Middle East and Northern Ireland and Sudan while hardly noticing the horrors that hold our neighbors captive. Though we have no answers or quick solutions, use our desires and our fervent pleadings to make a difference, sovereign God. Open the eyes of those who sit in seats of power and those who stand on the street corners, that they may catch a vision of your kingdom of justice and righteousness and work toward that end.

God of all the days and seasons, we offer to you our limited energy and insights—our less than praiseworthy stewardship of the time and talents we have been given—that we might make a difference in the lives of those we meet this day, that we might affect for good the places where we will go this season. Shape us into faithful followers, we pray, and hear us as we boldly pray the prayer Christ taught us, saying Our Father . . .

Prayer © Fourth Presbyterian Church