Sunday, June 10, 2007
Offered by Dana Ferguson, Executive Associate Pastor

God of creation, who has fashioned each of us, you know our every thought, our every deed, our every name, our every sitting down, our every rising up, our every coming and our every going. We are the saint and the sinner, the faithful and the fickle, the committed and the cantankerous, the disciplined and the disinterested—you know it all and all of us. And so we are amazed not only that you love us but also that you trust us with your word and with your world.

As we work to tend your world, O God, we pray that you would open our eyes to the light of your spirit that we might see wrong and set right living tomorrow’s life today. Let us reach to those who stumble, and break their fall. Help us be catch those who are about to faint; and lift up those who are struggling to rise. If someone requires our time, help us to give it. If someone needs a generous hand, help us to offer it. If someone wants to bless our lives, help us to receive it. If someone suffers from a wrong we have done, help us to mend it. We pray for those who grieve and those who wait to grieve; for those who hope and those who see no possibilities; for those who live in denial and those who can’t deal with reality. Grant us, O God, the compassion to weep with those who hurt and rejoice with those who sing your praise and the courage to help us know the joy with which you bring us into being and count each of us as precious.

God of justice and mercy, we seek to follow in your path. And yet many are the ways that we humans interpret your justice. So we pray this day for those who stand in the street to protest war and we pray for those who oppose them. We pray for soldiers who fight in the name of freedom and for civilians who live in fear or strike out in retaliation. We pray for those who wonder when justice will come to them, who have long hoped for peace and been disappointed, who have labored for justice and are now tired and frustrated, who steadfastly hold on to hope and continue in the name of peace. Help us all, O God, to see the world as you created it to be, to understand justice as you see it, and then to live so that the world’s people may live as one.

We do long to be a faithful people, O God. Gather us and we shall worship your holy name. Speak and we shall listen. Send us forth and we shall serve you , the God who was, and is, and evermore shall be. Receive us anew, we pray, O Lord, in the name of the one who taught the disciples to pray together saying, Our Father . . .

Prayer © Fourth Presbyterian Church