Sunday, July 12, 2015
Offered by Judith L. Watt, Associate Pastor

Holy God, you are our Rock, our Refuge, our Strength. You are our Hope, our Friend, and our Constant Companion. You are the one who persistently pursues each and every one of us, yearning that we turn to you. Help us to believe, even when our faith wanes. Help us to trust, even when all around us seems on shaky ground. We pray that you keep on tugging at us, calling us to you, allowing us to feel that tug and to hear your call.

We give you thanks for simple pleasures. For soft rain falling. For days filled with sunshine. For flowers. For family and friends. For interesting conversations with strangers. For the beauty of this sanctuary. For the freedom to worship. For the gift of life and breath.

We pray for our church, that our bonds with one another would be strengthened, that our desire to be effective would be outweighed always by a desire to be faithful. We pray for a place of welcome and service for each new member who joins us, and we pray for nurture in faith for each baby baptized, and we pray for belonging and honor for each person in the later stages of life.

The needs of the world overwhelm us, but we continue to pray for the more than 60 million refugees all over the world and for the agencies and people in those agencies who care for them. We pray again for a miracle—that the hearts of people would be changed and that the violence we hear about each and every day would stop, that you would move our legislators to law-making that would improve the lives and security of people in all communities. O God, you created humanity for salvation, not destruction, and you have called us into the way of peace. So we ask that you enable people of every race and nation to accept each other as sisters and brothers, each one to be valued, each one seen with potential.

Lord Jesus, you know our own deepest needs and desires, and you know the people for whom each one of us worries. In this moment of silence, we name our own concerns, trusting that you hear.

All of this we pray, gratefully, in the name of Jesus, your Son and our Savior, saying together the prayer he taught to his disciples: Our Father . . .

Prayer © Fourth Presbyterian Church