Old Testament

prayer to live in happiness and peace

/ Eric Mathews / Leave a comment

image by Agnes Leung via Flickr, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

 
O God, our Father, 
we know that the issues of life and death are in your hands, 
    and we know that you are loving us with an everlasting love.  
If it is your will, grant to us to live in happiness and in peace.
 
In all our undertakings,
    Grant us prosperity and good success.
In all our friendships,
    Grant us to find our friends faithful and true.
In all our bodily things,
    Make us fit and healthy,
        Able for the work of the day.
In all the things of the mind,
    Make us calm and serene,
        Free from anxiety and worry.
In material things,
    Save us from poverty and from want.
In spiritual things,
    Save us from doubt and from distrust.
Grant us 
    In our work satisfaction;
    In our study true wisdom;
    In our pleasure gladness;
    In our love loyalty.
 
And if misfortune does come to us, 
    grant that any trial may only bring us closer to one another and closer to you; 
    and grant that nothing may shake our certainty that you work all things together for good,
    and that a Father’s hand will never cause his child a needless tear. 
Hear this our prayer, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
 
William Barclay, 1907-1978, minister in the Church of Scotland
 
___________________________
 
 
Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord,
    whose trust is the Lord.
He is like a tree planted by water,
    that sends out its roots by the stream,
and does not fear when heat comes,
    for its leaves remain green,
and is not anxious in the year of drought,
    for it does not cease to bear fruit.
 

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Come gentle rain of Advent-tide

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Hawaii lava flower
 
Isaiah of old prayed,
    “Let the earth open wide her mouth;
    as justice descends, O heavens, 
    like the dew from above,
    like gentle showers,
    let salvation fall from the skies;
    let justice spring up
    and salvation bud forth.”
Come gentle rain of Advent-tide,
    soak deep into my heart,
    calling forth signs of an early spring.
Make buds appear on my heart’s barren rosebush
    and blooms on its dried flower stalks.
Come showers of silence and wet my soul;
    soak deeply with your fertile fingers, dripping heaven’s dew.
May I come forth from my times of prayer
    as from a bath:
    dripping wet from a sacred soaking, 
    refreshed, renewed, revitalized.
Advent prayer of December stillness,
    dampen my dry soul,
    coax forth green leaves of the Spirit 
    and bring forth buds of bright flowers 
    as green trees flicker with magic lights 
    and green wreath circles
    whirl on front doors,
    red-bowed in festive joy.
May soggy souls ooze out awesome gifts,
    for Emmanuel, God-among-us,
    is awakened from a yearlong slumber 
    by gentle mists of Advent longing 
    and is eager to give gifts of love, 
    presents of your presence.
Radiant Rain God,
    make me your brimful cloud,
    ready to shower down Emmanuel’s justice and peace 
    upon all I meet. 
 
Edward Hayes, 1931 – 2016, Catholic Priest, Kansas City
 
____________________________
 
 
Shower, O heavens, from above,
    and let the clouds rain down righteousness;
let the earth open,
    that salvation and righteousness may bear fruit;
    let the earth cause them both to sprout;
    I the Lord have created it.
 

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Your kingdom come, here and in heaven

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Thy kingdom come, Lord!
Raise, Lord; enlarge, Lord; establish your kingdom!
Yours is the glory.
And unless you want your glory confined only to heaven,
   or account the praises and eternal hallelujahs of saints and angels
       enough adoration for your great name, Lord,
   have regard to this poor decaying kingdom.
For only in it, and in heaven is your glory celebrated.
 
And if you leave this kingdom to be overrun 
    by the agents and ministers of the devil,
  or if idolatry and the profane gain ground here 
    so as to push you off your throne,
        would that not be giving your glory to another –
        which you have promised not to do?
 
Lord, you are still the same God.
Your essence is eternal.
Your attributes will never change.
Your power, wisdom, and mercy are the same as ever.
So in your mercy, grant us the same favor.
Amen.
 
Ezekiel Hopkins, 1634–1690, Anglican minister
_______________________
 
 
The thought of my suffering and homelessness
    is bitter beyond words
I will never forget this awful time,
    as I grieve over my loss.
Yet I still dare to hope
    when I remember this:

The faithful love of the Lord never ends!
    His mercies never cease.
Great is his faithfulness;
    his mercies begin afresh each morning.
I say to myself, “The Lord is my inheritance;
    therefore, I will hope in him!”

 

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the enjoyment of God

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Jonathan Edwards engraving, via Wikimedia Commons
 
 
God, You are the highest good of the reasonable creature,
    and the enjoyment of You is the only happiness 
    with which our souls can be satisfied.
To go to heaven fully to enjoy You,
    is infinitely better than the most pleasant accommodations here.
Fathers and mothers, husbands, wives, children, 
    or the company of earthly friends, are but shadows.
But the enjoyment of You is the substance.
 
These are but scattered beams, but You are the sun.
These are but streams, but You are the fountain.
These are but drops, but You are the ocean.
 
Jonathan Edwards, 1703-1758, American theologian and pastor
 
__________________________
 
 
I am overwhelmed with joy in the Lord my God!
    For he has dressed me with the clothing of salvation
    and draped me in a robe of righteousness.
I am like a bridegroom dressed for his wedding
    or a bride with her jewels.

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Jesus, Lord of Salvation

/ Eric Mathews / Leave a comment
 
 
How is it, dearest Jesus, 
    that you graciously reached down to visit your chosen, 
    even so long before your time on earth? 
To tell your people that your thoughts were good, and not evil?
 
When you appeared to Joshua in human form 
    as Captain of the Lord’s host, 
he instantly knew your glorious character as Mediator, 
    and fell to the earth in adoration.
 
Hail then, you almighty Lord, you Captain of the Lord’s host,
    and of my salvation! 
You have entered the holy war and led captivity captive.  
You have fully conquered Satan and sin, and death, and hell, 
    for your people.
 
And you will surely conquer all those tremendous foes of ours, 
    in your people, and bruise Satan under our feet shortly. 
Indeed, dear Lord, you have already brought them under, 
    for by your sovereign grace in the hearts of your redeemed, 
    you have made your people “willing in the day of your power.”
 
By the sword of your Spirit, you have convinced my soul of sin, 
   and by the arrows of your quiver, 
    you have wounded my heart with deep contrition for sin. 
Lord, I fall before you, as your servant Joshua did, and worship you.
 
And with all the church of the redeemed, 
    both in heaven and earth, we cheerfully confess  
  “that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” 
Amen!
 
Robert Hawker, 1753-1827, Anglican Priest
 
_____________________
 
 
When Joshua was near the town of Jericho, 
    he looked up and saw a man standing in front of him 
    with sword in hand. 
Joshua went up to him and demanded, “Are you friend or foe?”
“Neither one,” he replied. “I am the commander of the Lord’s army.”

At this, Joshua fell with his face to the ground in reverence.

“I am at your command,” Joshua said. 
“What do you want your servant to do?”

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God of good ideas

/ Eric Mathews / Leave a comment
image, Bureau of Land Management, CC0 via flickr
 
 
God of good ideas,
    who began the world
    with light and word,
    who began again
    with flood and rainbow;
we acknowledge our frustrations with your church:
    its committees and structures,
    its method and systems.
These things have made us angry and sapped our energy.
 
God of new beginnings
    who began a new way
    of living with resurrection,
    who began a new community
    with tongues of fire;
    begin again here
    that structures may bend
    like dancing saplings;
    the past, present and future
    may be woven into 
    a fresh path of commitment.
 
May our ideas for your world and this community
    resonate in your presence,
    so that tested, tried, and challenged
    they may blossom in us
    as do dry places
    when longed-for rain falls.
 
Janet Lees
 
________________________
 
 
Sing to the Lord a new song,
    his praise from the end of the earth,
you who go down to the sea, and all that fills it,
    the coastlands and their inhabitants.
Let the desert and its cities lift up their voice,
    the villages that Kedar inhabits;
let the habitants of Sela sing for joy,
    let them shout from the top of the mountains.
Let them give glory to the Lord,
    and declare his praise in the coastlands.

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reconcile us

/ Eric Mathews / Leave a comment
 
O God, Giver of Life, Bearer of Pain, Maker of Love,
    you are able to accept in us what we cannot even acknowledge:
    you are able to name in us what we cannot bear to speak of ;
    you are able to hold in your memory what we have tried to forget;
    you are able to hold out to us the glory that we cannot conceive of.
 
Reconcile us through your cross to all that we have rejected in ourselves,
    that we may find no part of your creation to be alien or strange to us,
    and that we ourselves may be made whole.
Through Jesus Christ, our love and our friend.
 
Janet Morely, British author, poet, and Christian feminist
 
___________________________
 
 
But now, this is what the Lord says—
    he who created you, Jacob,
    he who formed you, Israel:
“Do not fear, for I have redeemed you;
    I have summoned you by name; you are mine.
 
 
For God in all his fullness
    was pleased to live in Christ,
 and through him God reconciled
    everything to himself.
He made peace with everything in heaven and on earth
    by means of Christ’s blood on the cross.

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our feeble reality

/ Eric Mathews / Leave a comment
image by Ray ZHUANG via Unsplash
 
Lord God, the strongest and brightest of us 
    are as fragile as a floating bubble,
    unsteady as a newborn kitten on a waxed kitchen floor.
If we keep our footing in the shaky space 
    between our arrival and departure from this world
  we owe our survival – not to mention our success – to many other people
    who held us up and helped us crawl or fly or muck our way through
    and to You, God, who keeps breathing life into our lungs
        the way a child keeps puffing air into a leaking balloon.
    We take our every step in the energy of mercy . . . 
    We see each flower, taste each drop of water,
        sense the presence of each person around us,
            through your gift of consciousness.
For all this may we be grateful.
 
Lewis Smedes, 1921 – 2002, American ethicist and author in the Reformed tradition
Prayers for Today, slightly modified
_________________________
 
 
Yes, the Sovereign Lord is coming in power.
    He will rule with a powerful arm.
    See, he brings his reward with him as he comes.
He will feed his flock like a shepherd.
    He will carry the lambs in his arms,
holding them close to his heart.
    He will gently lead the mother sheep with their young.

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a new beginning

/ Eric Mathews / Leave a comment
image by geralt via pixabay
 
 
Lord God, the saying,
    “The road to hell is paved with good intentions”
  reveals a deep Christian insight.
At the beginning of a new year, 
    many have nothing better to do than make a list of bad deeds
    and resolve from then on to begin with better intentions,
    believing that a good intention already means a new beginning.
Sometimes we believe that on our own we can make a new start
    whenever we want.
But that is an evil illusion: 
    only You can make a new beginning with us whenever You please, 
    but we cannot make a new beginning with You.
Therefore, we cannot make a new beginning at all;
    we can only pray for one.
When we are on our own and live by our own devices,
    there is only the old, the past.
Only where You are can there be a new beginning.
We cannot command You to grant it:
    we can only pray asking You for it.
And we can pray only when we realize that we cannot do anything,
    that we have reached our limit,
    that someone else must make that new beginning.
 
after Dietrich Bonhoeffer, 1906 – 1945, German  theologian and martyr
 
__________________________
 
 
Forget the former things;
    do not dwell on the past.
See, I am doing a new thing!
    Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?
I am making a way in the wilderness
    and streams in the wasteland.
 

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prayer about growing old

/ Eric Mathews / 2 Comments
image by Vinoth Chandar via Flickr CC BY 2.0 DEED
 
 
When the signs of age begin to mark my body 
    and still more when they touch my mind;
when the illness that is to diminish me or carry me off
    strikes from without or is born within me;
when the painful moment comes 
    in which I suddenly awaken to the fact that
    I am ill or growing old;
in all these dark moments, O God, 
    grant that I may understand that it is you, 
        provided only my faith is strong enough,
    who are painfully parting the fibers of my being
    in order to penetrate to the very marrow of my substance
        and bear me away within yourself.
 
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, 1881 – 1955, French philosopher and Jesuit priest
 
___________________________
 
 
Listen to me, O house of Jacob,
    all the remnant of the house of Israel,
who have been borne by me from before your birth,
    carried from the womb;
even to your old age I am he,
    and to gray hairs I will carry you.
I have made, and I will bear;
    I will carry and will save.

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