Sunday, November 10, 2013
Offered by Joyce Shin, Associate Pastor

Almighty God, out of love and for love you have created us. You have endowed us with hearts that beat not just to live, but to live for one another. While we know that love is our highest calling, we confess that it is also our hardest.

It is harder to be loving than to move mountains, than to speak in the tongues of angels, than to give away all our possessions. And yet you call us to this task. You command it. You command us to forgive our enemies out of love; to welcome the stranger out of love; to care for the sick, visit the prisoner, and clothe the naked out of love. You call us to be peacemakers because of love.

And so we pray to you, God, for love. We know that our love for your world is small; make it big, for we want to learn to love those beyond our homes, beyond our neighborhoods, beyond our churches, beyond our borders. We want our love to make a difference for people whose hardships are heartbreaking. We pray for the displaced and injured in Syria, for the oppressed people of North Korea, for women and girls in Pakistan, and for those who are now suffering in the Philippines. Let love make the difference.

In our own lives, too, we pray that your love make all the difference. We have trouble forgiving those closest to us, and sometimes we struggle to forgive ourselves. We hold onto resentments and feel helpless in our estrangements. Help us to trust that your love leaves nothing the same, that by your love all our relationships may be made whole. In our daily living, may we trust that love recreates all things.

Almighty God, until that day when your heaven and earth are a new creation, pour out your love upon us, that we might feel it, share it, and be empowered by it.

We pray this for the sake of your Son, who taught us also to pray, saying Our Father . . .

Prayer © Fourth Presbyterian Church