Sunday, January 13, 2008
Offered by Joyce Shin, Associate Pastor

There is so much to pray for, God.

Before we know it, our minds are occupied, our time is filled, our days are spent, and we haven’t yet asked ourselves which things matter more and which things matter less. Do not let this be one of those days. You, God, are the one who helps us to separate the significant from the trivial. Whenever we pray to you, we shed trivialities, our perspectives shift, and our convictions deepen. We wonder if these are movements of your Spirit, and we hope that they are, for we want so much to occupy our minds with you, to fill our time and spend our days on what matters most.

There is so much to pray for, God.
You have created a world beautiful and good. Forgive us for providing for ourselves in ways that plunder the earth’s beauty and in quantities that take up more than our good share. Whenever we waste the earth’s resources, distribute them unfairly, and vandalize their beauty, we take your kingdom for granted. We are sorry for this, and we ask you to drive us toward new ways of living so that we might restore the integrity of your kingdom.

There is so much to pray for, God.
In your loving care and wisdom, you have ordained our lives to be spent not alone but in the company of others. You have given us families and friendships, communities and the church, and in these relationships we learn what faithfulness requires. The faithfulness between partners, between parents and children, between brothers and sisters, and between friends requires nothing les than every virtue we are capable of cultivating. So we pray that you help us to dedicate to these relationships all the time, energy, and loving care that they require to flourish and to bear good fruit.

There is so much to pray for, God.
We do not understand the mystery of our baptism, what binds us together. Like John the Baptist, we wonder how we can be baptized by the same Spirit that baptized Jesus Christ. You have given us the water of baptism with which to seal our lives. You have given us the fellowship of the church to keep us faithful all our days. You have given us the power to pray for and the hands to transform this world in which we live. So we pray that you make us mindful of all to whom we are tied in baptism and of all that we can do to renew your creation, making it life-giving for all.

In the name of your Son, Jesus Christ, we pray as he taught us to pray: Our Father . . .

Prayer © Fourth Presbyterian Church