Sunday, August 15, 2010
Offered by Joyce Shin, Associate Pastor

Lord of our lives, you know our comings and our goings. You know when we sleep and when we rise. Just as you have always watched over us, you ask us to be on the watch for you.

Were you to come in the middle of the night, we fear that we would not be dressed for action, Lord. Our lamps would not be lit. For even when it is daylight, we fail to look for you, to wait for you, even to hope for you.

We are preoccupied, Lord, with all that is around us, things that we consume and things that nearly consume us. Try as you might, Lord, to astound us with beauty, with the awesomeness of your world and the connectedness of your creation, our attention is so short in span and our senses dulled.

Make us seekers of your signs, Lord, so that we do not settle in shallowness. Help us to look beyond appearances for what is significant. Teach us to hear your word for new meanings. Put us in touch with what more you would have us see, know, and love.

For you have promised great things for us. Though they are too profound, grand, and complex for us to behold at once, we can, layer by layer, little by little, part by part, come to know the promise you have made.

Only then, Lord, will we know fully for what to hope; only then will our hope be for the world as well as for ourselves, for a peace that not only permeates our hearts and minds but also pervades all lands. Only then will we hope more for the new creation that you make possible in Christ than for things to stay as they have been for our sake.

Until your promise is fulfilled, do not let us be anxious, Lord. Instead dress us for action and equip us with every virtue we need so that we might persevere and press on until the day when the world and all that is in it have become a new creation. And when we fall short, make up the distance, Lord. For the sake of your Son and the world he loved, we pray the prayer he taught us to say: Our Father . . .

Prayer © Fourth Presbyterian Church