Prayers of the People - May 18
Monday Evening Prayers
Pause at the end of each day. Enjoy communion with the living God: Creator, Redeemer, Holy Spirit. Listen for the voice of God in the scriptures.
Readings
Psalm 38 and Romans 14.13-23
Meditate
The words of the Lord are spirit and life, a light to the wise path.
Sit with your questions, write down your observations and tensions.
Pray
Bring your meditations to this time of prayer and let them guide you, or use the prayer we’ve offered here:
Lord, hear the prayers of your people. Our days are long, but time seems pressed together.
Lord, we are waiting on a change. COVID-19 brings about restlessness, fatigue, and insomnia, and we know that you - the God of rest - somehow never need to sleep. We need your power to sleep amidst this storm. Your Spirit of rest and release. And we need justice, O Lord. Match your will to our worries, and bring us the reality of holy relief.
It is for you, O Lord, that we wait. Make haste to help us, Lord of our salvation.
We have made mistakes today. We have forgotten to practice as much as we preach. Have we caused a friend or neighbor to stumble? Give us the opportunity to show love. Have we failed to practice hospitality? Have we behaved as hypocrites? Pretentious? Have we hoarded your goods or spent money selfishly? Search us O God. Make our longings just and true.
God of peace, hear our cries for real liberation. Freedom from lynching and police crimes, we cry out! For the blood of your beloved children cries to you from the ground. Hear our prayers oh God and heal!
Heal our siblings sickened from addiction, Lord heal. Our loved ones languishing in loneliness, Lord be near. Our young people in need of activity, education, a safe space and structure for their days, O God be the Light and the Way. If these your children stumble because we enable them, if they stumble because we ignore them, if they fall prey because all we want to do is pray… please change us.
** pray and intercede as you are led**
Holy Spirit please come to us and teach us righteousness, peace and joy, that we might pursue peace and mutual upbuilding.
“O Lord, all my longing is known to you; my sighing is not hidden from you. My heart throbs, my strength fails me; as for the light of my eyes—it also has gone from me. My friends and companions stand aloof from my affliction, and my neighbors stand far off.” from Psalm 38
Contemplate
In silence, or through song. It is to You - Byron Cage
Seek God’s face
“My heart said - seek God’s face. Lord, your face will I seek” Psalm 27.8
O Lord, all our longing is known to you. All power is yours, for all things are from you and through you and to you. We your children, remain in need of your power, in need of strength, in need of rest.
Lord, hear the prayers of your people. Amen
Artwork: Images of Murals from
Royyal Dog
Norf Art Collection