August 23, 2020

Offered by Rocky Supinger, Associate Pastor

Almighty God,
in Jesus Christ you taught us to pray.
Guide us by your Holy Spirit,
that our prayers may serve your will
and show your steadfast love.

We pray for the world you have made,
that evil powers would be overthrown and that wrongs would be righted,
that those who hunger and thirst for justice would be fed and satisfied,
so that all your children may freely enjoy your creation.

We pray, too, for your creation, which you call “good”;
protect those in the paths of wildfires,
those enduring impossible heat,
as well as those, in this season,
threatened by hurricanes and tropical storms;
in a time of changing climate and intensifying weather,
protect those most vulnerable to their effects,
even as we summon the will to conserve
what you task us with safeguarding.

O God,
whom we cannot love unless we love our neighbors,
remove from our hearts the disdain that
belittles your children with whom we disagree;
grow understanding among us as neighbors and strangers,
young and aged,
demonstrators and counter-demonstrators—
across races and genders and classes and ethnicities—
that we may have a true experience
of one another’s humanity in all its glory and all its wreckage;
help us to honor difference and pursue unity with equal vigor,
O God who is Three in One.

And, mighty God, sovereign over the nations,
direct those who make, enforce, and judge our laws,
our president and all our elected and appointed officials,
our governor and our mayors,
our school boards and our neighborhood councils;
may our leaders be guided by your wisdom,
and may they lead in a way of righteousness,
that equity and honesty and integrity
would be lifted up in our common life.

Merciful God,
you bear the pain of the world,
and there is plenty of it today.
Look with compassion on those who are sick;
visit them with healing as a sign of your grace.
Lend your depth of insight and wisdom
to doctors and researchers working hard on a coronavirus vaccine,
that the virus would abate
and that everyone affected by it would be rescued—
in body, mind, and spirit.

And stand today with those who sorrow,
those who have lost someone dear to them—
to age, or illness, or violence;
visit the grieving with that most powerful assurance
that neither death nor life,
nor things present nor things to come,
nor pestilence nor gun,
nor anything else in all creation
can separate us from your love;
through Jesus Christ our Lord,
in whose name we pray,
praying as he taught his disciples:

Our Father...

Prayer © Fourth Presbyterian Church