Sunday, January 16, 2011
Offered by Adam H. Fronczek, Associate Pastor

God, we pray to you because we need to. Our lives are crowded with demands, and our actions are filled with shortcomings. We do not make enough time to pray. Often we have been insecure and anxious over things we cannot change; often we have felt helpless, even in the midst of things we can change. We long for a world of civility. We wait for justice. We wait to be formed into the people you want for us to be.  So we pray. Hear our prayer.

We pray for people who suffer in all kinds of ways—fighting cancer, awaiting a test result, enduring lengthy illnesses. We pray for people who are struggling against poverty or against the cold, unsure of where to get a next meal or where they will sleep tonight. We pray for people who are in prison. We pray for people who are uncertain about their marriage, fearful for a child who is lost or a parent whose health is declining.

Outside of our own lives, there are often signs that the world is not as it should be and is in need of your grace and redemption. We pray for places where fear, violence, and injustice reigns. We pray for families of victims in Tucson and for our president and leaders. We pray for the gunman and his family; we remember in him that we have not always taken care of members of our human family who are deeply troubled. We give thanks for the ordinary citizens whom we now think of as heroes. We remember that in the ordinary and everyday occurrences of our own lives, we might be heroes—there are often quiet ways for each of us to take steps to be something more than we thought we might be.

We give you thanks for signs in our past that we can be better. We thank you for Dr. King and for his legacy. We thank you for a country that can see its own errors and change. We thank you that you give us a future and a hope.

It is not our own works that are miraculous; the miracle of our very lives is a testimony to your greatness. You have formed us from the dust and breathed life into our bodies. You have found ways to be both toughminded and tenderhearted with us, lifting us up when we have been in the depths, holding us in your embrace like a loving parent, providing us with the challenges we need in order to grow.

When we are able to hush the noise of the world that distracts us, we often know that you are calling our names. You are calling us to be not just bystanders, but extremists for justice and freedom and peace. You are calling us to places where forgiveness is extended and accepted, where new life and possibilities are present, and where we have the strength to not simply put one foot in front of the other but to march in the path of your light, that we may be radiant stars of love and brotherhood and sisterhood.

When we look, O God, we see that signs of your goodness in the world are as countless as the stars. So we thank you. And we pray these prayers in the name of Jesus Christ, the one who was called the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

Our Father . . .

Prayer © Fourth Presbyterian Church