March 15, 2020
Third Sunday in Lent
Offered by Nanette Sawyer, Associate Pastor

One of the things we know we can do together, even if we are not in the same physical space together, is to pray. We pray because prayer changes things. It changes us. 

So wherever we are this day, let us now join our hearts together as we pray for our world, our nation, our churches, and our lives.

Holy God, gracious and loving God, we gather our hearts together in prayer. We turn to you, remembering you and relying on you to help us, to guide us, and to give us strength and love.

Give us a spirit of kindness, and help us to think about our neighbors, how we can help them, and how we can allow them to help us.

Into our anxiety, sow peace. Into our fear, sow courage.

Into our confusion, sow wisdom. Into our division, sow love.

We pray for all those who are experiencing illness of any kind. Heal their bodies and heal their souls. Protect all those who are affected by the coronavirus. Keep them safe, and help them heal.

Be with the nurses and doctors, surgeons, scientists, and paramedics, as they seek to care for people and to heal them. Bring them wisdom and insight, and keep them strong themselves. Help all caregivers to be renewed and to get the rest they need to continue to serve as they would like.

We pray for those who are most vulnerable in this world. Help us to be the hands and feet of Christ, bringing healing, attention, and love to all those in need. Give us joy and laughter to share with one another, as well as food and safety and justice.

Holy God, we pray for all leaders of our nation and our world. Fill them with a spirit of wisdom and courage, that they may lead rightly, driven by compassion for all people.

Strengthen our leaders with clarity, and soften them with humility, as we know that no human being is infallible and all people need your grace.

We pray for your creation, God. Help us to care for all that you have given us. Make us faithful stewards, guide our actions, help us to resist taking more than our fair share. Fill us with a spirit of generosity and a sense of security, that we may be free of fear and filled with your spirit of abundance and sufficiency.

O God of all creation, we pray for the church in all places, that even as we worship in separate places and at different times, even so bind us together into one human family. Help us, we who are Christian, to be the body of Christ, loving and serving the world and all the peoples that you have created, Holy God.

Even now, in all our different places, we join our voices with the voice of Jesus who taught us to pray, saying, Our Father . . .

Prayer © Fourth Presbyterian Church