Psalms

Open unto me

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Open unto me, light for my darkness
Open unto me, courage for my fear
Open unto me, hope for my despair
Open unto me, peace for my turmoil
Open unto me, joy for my sorrow
Open unto me, strength for my weakness
Open unto me, wisdom for my confusion
Open unto me, forgiveness for my sins
Open unto me, tenderness for my toughness
Open unto me, love for my hates
Open unto me, Thy Self for myself
Lord, Lord, open unto me!

Howard Thurman, 1899-1981, American author, educator and civil rights leader
___________________________________
 
 
The Lord sets the prisoners free;
   the Lord opens the eyes of the blind.
The Lord lifts up those who are bowed down;
    the Lord loves the righteous.
The Lord watches over the sojourners;
    he upholds the widow and the fatherless,
    but the way of the wicked he brings to ruin.
 

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Why is there so little prayer?

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Why is there so little urgency
    to get time to pray?
Why is there so little forethought 
    in the laying out of time and schedule
  so as to secure a large portion 
    of each day for prayer?
Why is there so much talking,
    yet so little prayer?
Why is there so much running to and fro,
    yet so little prayer?
Why so much bustle and business,
    yet so little prayer?
Why so many meetings with our fellow men.
    yet so few meetings with You?
Why so little being alone,
    so little thirsting of the soul 
        for the calm. sweet, hours of unbroken solitude,
    where You and your child hold fellowship 
        as if they could never part?
It is the scarcity of these solitary hours 
    that not only injures my own growth in grace
    but also makes me such an unprofitable member of Your church,
         and renders my life useless.
 
Horatius Bonar, 1808-1889, Scottish Preacher and Hymnist
Celtic Daily Prayer, freely modified
 
_________________________
 
 
Give ear, O Lord, to my prayer;
    listen to my plea for grace.
In the day of my trouble I call upon you,
    for you answer me.
 

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Blessings of Time for the New Year

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image by geralt via pixabay
 
Lord, You who live outside of time,
  and reside in the imperishable moment,
  we ask Your blessing this New Year’s Day 
  upon Your gift to us of time

Bless our clocks and watches,
You who kindly direct us to observe the
  passing of minutes and hours.
May they make us aware of the miracle
  of each second of life we experience.

May these, our ticking servants
  help us not to miss that which is important,
  while You keep us from machine-like routine.
May we ever be free from being clock watchers
  and instead become those who journey through time.

Bless our calendars,
  these ordered lists of days, weeks and
  months, of holidays, holydays, fasts and feasts—
  all our special days of remembering.
May these servants, our calendars, 
  once reserved for the royal few,
  for magi and pyramid priests, 
  now grace our homes and our lives.

May they remind us of birthdays and other gift-days,
  as they teach us the secret that all life is meant
  for celebration and contemplation.

Bless, Lord, this new year, each of its 365 days and nights.
Bless us with new moons and full moons.
Bless us with happy seasons and a long life.

Grant to us, Lord, the new year’s gift of a year of love.  Amen.
 
Patmos Abbey—The Order of Saint Columba
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Lord, remind me how brief my time on earth will be.
    Remind me that my days are numbered—
    how fleeting my life is.
You have made my life no longer than the width of my hand.
    My entire lifetime is just a moment to you;
    at best, each of us is but a breath.
We are merely moving shadows,
    and all our busy rushing ends in nothing.
We heap up wealth,
    not knowing who will spend it.
And so, Lord, where do I put my hope?
    My only hope is in you.

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my neighbor has injured me

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Photo by Rana via Pexels
My Lord Jesus Christ, 
    my neighbor has injured me,
    hurt my honor by talking about me,
    and interfered with my rights.
O God, hear my complaint.
    I would gladly feel kindly toward my neighbor,
        but I cannot.
    How totally cold and insensible I am.
 
O Lord, 
    I am helpless and forsaken.
    If you change me, I will be sincere.
O dear God, 
    change me by your grace,
        or I must remain as I am.
Amen.
 
Martin Luther, 1483-1546, German Reformer
 
________________
 
 
Even my close friend,
    someone I trusted,
one who shared my bread,
    has turned against me.

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Draw our hearts to trust

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image by  via Flickr    CC BY-SA 2.0
 
 
O Lord God, in whom we live and move and have our being,
    Open our eyes that we may behold your fatherly presence ever with us.
    Draw our hearts to you with the power of your love.
    Teach us to not be anxious about anything,
        and when we have done what you have given us to do
        help us, O God our Savior, to leave the issue to your wisdom.
    Take from us all doubt and mistrust.
    Lift our hearts up to yourself in heaven,
        and make us to know that all things are possible to us 
through your Son our Redeemer.
 
Brooke Foss Westcott, 1825-1901, British bishop and Biblical scholar
 
_______________________
 
 
Trust in the Lord and do good;
    dwell in the land and enjoy safe pasture.
Take delight in the Lord,
    and he will give you the desires of your heart.
Commit your way to the Lord;
    trust in him and he will do this:
He will make your righteous reward shine like the dawn,
    your vindication like the noonday sun.
Be still before the Lord
    and wait patiently for him;
do not fret when people succeed in their ways,
    when they carry out their wicked schemes.

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Son of God, deliver us

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Photo by Johannes Plenio via Pexels
 
You who guided Noah over the flood waves:
    Hear us.
You who with your word recalled Jonah from the deep:
    Deliver us.
You who stretched forth your hand to Peter as he sank:
    Help us, O Christ.
Son of God, who did marvelous things of old:
    Be favorable in our day also.
 
Scots Celtic Prayer
 
______________________
 
 
The Lord is king! He is robed in majesty.
    Indeed, the Lord is robed in majesty and armed with strength.
The world stands firm
    and cannot be shaken.
Your throne, O Lord, has stood from time immemorial.
    You yourself are from the everlasting past.
The floods have risen up, O Lord.
    The floods have roared like thunder;
    the floods have lifted their pounding waves.
But mightier than the violent raging of the seas,
    mightier than the breakers on the shore—
    the Lord above is mightier than these!
Your royal laws cannot be changed.
    Your reign, O Lord, is holy forever and ever.
 

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Lord, raise up my soul

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Gregory of Nazianzus, by Peter Paul Rubens via Wikimedia Commons
 
The breath of life, O Lord, seems spent.
My body is tense, my mind filled with anxiety,
Yet I have no zest, no energy.
I am helpless to allay my fears
I am incapable of relaxing my limbs.
Dark thoughts constantly invade my head,
And I have no power to resist them.
 
Was ever an oak tree buffeted by wind,
As the gales of melancholy now buffet my soul?
Was ever a ship tossed by the waves,
As my soul is now tossed by misery?
Did ever the foundation of a house crumble,
As my own life now crumbles to dust?
 
Friends no longer want to visit me.
You have driven away my spiritual brethren.
I am now an outcast from your church.
No longer the flowers want to bloom for me.
No longer the trees come into leaf for me.
No longer the birds sing at my window.
 
My fellow Christians condemn me as an idle sinner.
Lord, raise up my soul, revive my body.
 
Gregory of Nazianzus, 329-389, Archbishop of Constantinople
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Hear my prayer, Lord;
    let my cry for help come to you.
Do not hide your face from me
    when I am in distress.
Turn your ear to me;
    when I call, answer me quickly.

For my days vanish like smoke;
    my bones burn like glowing embers.
My heart is blighted and withered like grass;
    I forget to eat my food.
In my distress I groan aloud
    and am reduced to skin and bones.
I am like a desert owl,
    like an owl among the ruins.
I lie awake; I have become
    like a bird alone on a roof.
All day long my enemies taunt me;
    those who rail against me use my name as a curse.
For I eat ashes as my food
    and mingle my drink with tears
 because of your great wrath,
    for you have taken me up and thrown me aside.
My days are like the evening shadow;
    I wither away like grass.

But you, Lord, sit enthroned forever;
    your renown endures through all generations.
You will arise and have compassion on Zion,
    for it is time to show favor to her;
    the appointed time has come.
 

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Grace to believe and to love God

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Flannery O’Connor, Cmacauley, CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons
 
 
Please let Christian principles permeate my writing 
    and please let there be enough of my writing (published)
    for Christian principles to permeate.
I dread, Oh Lord, losing my faith. 
My mind is not strong.
It is prey to all sorts of intellectual quackery.
I do not want it to be fear which keeps me in the church.
I don’t want to be a coward, staying with You because I fear hell.
I should reason that if I fear hell, I can be assured of the author of it
But learned people can analyze for me why I fear hell 
    and their implication is that there is no hell.
But I believe in hell.
Hell seems a great deal more feasible to my weak mind than heaven.
No doubt because hell is a more earthly seeming thing.
I can fancy the tortures of the damned
    but I cannot imagine the disembodied souls 
    hanging in a crystal for all eternity praising God.
It is natural that I should not imagine this.
If we could accurately map heaven some of our up & coming scientists
    would begin to draw blueprints for its improvement,
    and the bourgeois would sell guides 10 cents the copy to all over 65.
But I do not mean to be clever although I do mean to be clever on 2nd thought
    and like to be clever and want to be considered so.
But the point more specifically here is,
    I don’t want to fear to be out, I want to love to be in;
    I don’t want to believe in hell but in heaven.
Stating this does me no good.
It is a matter of the gift of grace.
Help me to feel that I will give up every earthly thing for this.
 
Flannery O’Conner, 1925 – 1964, American Catholic writer, 
A Prayer Journal, journalled when she was 22
 
_____________________
 
 
The Lord is good to all;
    he has compassion on all he has made.
All your works praise you, Lord;
    your faithful people extol you.
They tell of the glory of your kingdom
    and speak of your might,
 so that all people may know of your mighty acts
    and the glorious splendor of your kingdom.
Your kingdom is an everlasting kingdom,
    and your dominion endures through all generations.
 

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you have forgiven me such great sins

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What return shall I make to the Lord 
    for my ability to recall these things with no fear in my soul? 
I will love you, Lord, and thank you, and praise your name, 
    because you have forgiven me such great sins and such wicked deeds. 
I acknowledge that it was by your grace and mercy 
    that you melted away my sins like ice. 
I acknowledge, too, that by your grace 
    I was preserved from whatever sins I did not commit,
    for there was no knowing what I might have done, 
    since I loved evil even if it served no purpose. 
I avow that you have forgiven me all,
    both the sins which I committed of my own accord 
    and those which by your guidance I was spared from committing.

What man who reflects upon his own weakness 
    can dare to claim that his own efforts have made him chaste and free from sin, 
    as though this entitled him to love you the less, 
    on the ground that he had less need of the mercy 
    by which you forgive the sins of the penitent? 
There are some who have been called by you 
    and because they have listened to your voice 
    they have avoided the sins which I here record and confess for them to read. 
But let them not deride me for having been cured by the same Doctor 
    who preserved them from sickness, 
    or at least from such grave sickness as mine. 
Let them love you just as much, or even more, than I do, 
    for they can see that the same healing hand 
        which rid me of the great fever of my sins 
        protects them from falling sick of the same disease. 
 
St. Augustine of Hippo, 354-430
 
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I love the Lord, for he heard my voice;
    he heard my cry for mercy.
Because he turned his ear to me,
    I will call on him as long as I live.

The cords of death entangled me,
    the anguish of the grave came over me;
    I was overcome by distress and sorrow.
Then I called on the name of the Lord:
    “Lord, save me!”

The Lord is gracious and righteous;
    our God is full of compassion.
The Lord protects the unwary;
    when I was brought low, he saved me.

Return to your rest, my soul,
    for the Lord has been good to you.

For you, Lord, have delivered me from death,
    my eyes from tears,
    my feet from stumbling,
 that I may walk before the Lord
    in the land of the living.
 

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make us relevant to those in need

/ Eric Mathews / Leave a comment
Supper at Emmaus, by Peter Paul Rubens via Wikimedia Commons
 
 
God of life
God of justice
God of love and mercy
 
God the provider
God our refuge and sustainer
God our comforter
 
Hear the plight of those living in squalid conditions
We present the vulnerabilities of the widows,
orphans, sick, the aged, and unemployed
We present their needs before you
We appeal to you to meet them at their point of need
 
Give them hope and faith in you
Give them courage to soldier on
Give them resilience and tenacity
 
We pray that while the powers that 
have tended to ignore their plight
you will be the eyes and ears that see and listen
to their heartfelt needs
 
We pray that you make us the instrument
and the channel of healing and source of comfort;
We appear to you to make us relevant and effective
to those in need.
Amen.
 
complied by Claudio Carvalhaes, professor of worship in New York City
 
________________________
 
 
God has taken his place in the divine council;
    in the midst of the gods he holds judgment:
“How long will you judge unjustly
    and show partiality to the wicked? 
Give justice to the weak and the fatherless;
    maintain the right of the afflicted and the destitute.
Rescue the weak and the needy;
    deliver them from the hand of the wicked.”
 

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