my words can’t carry all the praise

/ Eric Mathews / Leave a comment
The Thankful Poor, H.O. Tanner, via Wikimedia Commons
 
Glorious God,
how curious
    and what a confession
        that we should set aside one day a year
             and call it Thanksgiving.
I smile at the presumption,
    and hope you smile, too.
The the truth is,
    Holy Friend,
    that my words can’t carry all the praise
          I want them to,
              of that they should,
                  no matter how many trips they make.
So this day,
    all is praise and thanks
        for all my days.
 
I breathe and it is your breath that fills me.
    I look and it is your light by which I see.
        I move and it is your energy moving in me.
I listen and even stones speak of you.
    I touch and you are between finger and skin.
        I think and the thoughts are but sparks
             from the fire of your truth.
I love and the throb is your presence.
    I laugh and it is the rustle of your passing.
        I weep and your Spirit broods over me.
            I long and it is the tug of your kingdom.
 
I praise you, Glorious One,
for what has been, and is and will ever be:
for galaxy upon galaxy, mass and energy,
    earth and air, sun and night,
        sea and shore, mountain and valley,
            root and branch, male and female,
creature upon creature in a thousand ingenious ways,
    two-legged, hundred legged, smooth, furry, and feathery,
        bull-frogs and platypuses, peacocks and preachers,
and turkeys (especially the roasted kind)
    and families gathered, and the thanking;
        the brave, lonely one, and the asking;
            the growling, hungry ones, and the sharing.
 
O Glorious One,
for this curious day,
    for the impulses that have designated it,
        for the gifts that grace it,
            for the gladness that accompanies it,
for my life,
    for those through whom I came to be,
        for friends though whom I hear and see
            greater worlds than otherwise I would,
for all the doors of words and music and worship
    through which I pass to larger worlds,
        and for the One who brought a kingdom to me,
I pause to praise and thank you
    with this one more trip of words
        which leaves too much uncarried,
            but not unfelt,
                unlived,
                    unloved,
                        Thank you!
 
Ted Loder, 1930-2021, American Methodist minister
 
________________________
 
 
Bless the Lord, O my soul,
    and all that is within me,
    bless his holy name!
Bless the Lord, O my soul,
    and forget not all his benefits,
who forgives all your iniquity,
    who heals all your diseases,
who redeems your life from the pit,
    who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy,
who satisfies you with good
    so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.

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Blessing for the day’s work

/ Eric Mathews / Leave a comment

Security of the People, ​Seymour Fogel, Wikimedia Commons

 
I will not let you go, O Lord, until you bless me;
    so bless me this day, this hour, this moment:
 
Bless my mind to discern the one thing that this day requires;
Bless my heart to remain at peace in the face of fear;
Bless my will to resist all needless distractions;
Bless my hands to do the work that you have entrusted to me;
Bless my ears to be attuned to your voice;
Bless my eyes to see the signs of your presence;
Bless my feet to go wherever you would lead me.
 
I pray this so that I might be
    like the birds of the air
    and the lilies of the field,
    free of worry and secure
    in the enfolding care
    of my Father in heaven.
I pray this in your name.
Amen.
 
Prayers for the Pilgrimage
W. David O. Taylor, American theologian and Anglican priest
 
_________________________
 
 
Blessed are all who fear the Lord,
    who walk in obedience to him.
You will eat the fruit of your labor;
    blessings and prosperity will be yours.
 

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Veterans Day prayer

/ Eric Mathews / Leave a comment

image

Lord, You know how deep a warrior’s wounds go.
You know the loss that many of our veterans in body and soul.
You know the memories that haunt them
   and the scars that many of them continue to carry.
Please bring healing to those veterans who still hurt.
Please grant patience and wisdom to those around them
   who cannot understand
   but can sometimes help the healing process.
Please apply both natural and supernatural medicine to their wounds.
 
Bob Hostetler, Pastor and author from Ohio
__________________
 
 
I will exalt you, Lord,
because you have lifted me up
and have not allowed my enemies
to triumph over me.
Lord my God,
I cried to you for help, and you healed me.
 
 
reposted from 2017

We come to pray for ourselves…

/ Eric Mathews / Leave a comment
Photo by Chris Zhang on Unsplash

God of our times, our years, our days.
  You are the God of our work,
        of our rest,
        of our weariness.
Our times are in your hands. We come to you now
    in our strength and in our weakness,
    in our hope and in our despair,
    in our buoyancy and in our disease.
We come to pray for ourselves and for all like us
    who seek and yearn for life anew with you and from you
        and for you.

We pray to you this day, for ourselves and others like us in our greed
  We are among those who want more,
        more money, more power, more piety, more sex,
        more influence, more doctrine, more notice,
        more members,
        more students, more morality, more learning, more shoes.
  Be for us enough and more than enough,
    for we know about your self-giving generosity.

We pray to you this day; for ourselves and others like us
        in our disconsolation.
  We are not far removed from those without.
        without love. without home, without hope,
        without job, without health care.
  We are close enough to vision those who must
        check discarded butts to see if there is one more puff,
        who must rummage and scavenge for food.
        for their hungers are close to ours.
  Be among us the God who fills the hungry with good things,
        and sends the rich away empty.

We pray to you this day, for ourselves and others like us
    who are genuinely good people,
    who meditate on your Torah day and night.
    who are propelled by and for your best causes.
    who are on the right side of every issue,
    who wear ourselves out in obedience to you,
        and sometimes wear others out with our good intentions.
Be among us ultimate enough
        to make our passions penultimate,
        valid but less than crucial.
 
We are your people. We wait for you to be more visibly
    and palpably our God.
So we pray with our mothers and fathers, ” Come, Lord Jesus.”
We wait for your coming with all the graciousness we can muster.
Amen.
 
Walter Brueggemann, 1933 – 2025,  American Protestant Old Testament theologian 
 
________________
 

Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, 
    that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

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Jesus, you are stronger

/ Eric Mathews / Leave a comment

 

O Lord Jesus Christ,
There is so much to drag us back:
    empty pursuits, trivial pleasures, unworthy cares.
There is so much to frighten us away:
    a pride too cowardly to submit to being helped,
    cowardly apprehensiveness which evades danger
        to its own destruction,
    anguish for sin which shuns holy cleansing
        as a disease shuns medicine.
 
But You are stronger than these.
    so draw us now more strongly to Yourself.
We call You our Savior and Redeemer,
    since You came to earth to redeem us 
    from the slavery from which we were bound
    or had bound ourselves.
 
This is Your work,
    which You completed,
    and which you will continue to complete
    until the end of the world;
for since You Yourself have said it,
     therefore You will do it –
lifted up from earth, You will draw all unto Yourself.
 
Søren Kierkegaard, 1813 – 1855, Danish philosopher and theologian
from The Prayers of Kierkgaard, freely modified
 
______________________________
 
 
But when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, 
    not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. 
He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, 
    whom he poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Savior

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protect my heart

/ Eric Mathews / Leave a comment
image by Annija U via Pexels
 
I give you my heart, 
    and I humbly pray that you would always keep it in your hands,
    since it is so unfaithful in loving what is good.
When it is in my control, 
    it is prone to follow all sorts of evils.
Oh Father, 
    keep my heart steadfast and unalterable in your ways.
Let it not be inclined to any evil thing 
    nor lean toward any of my former vanities.
Keep my eyes from looking upon and my ears from listening
    to any sort of wickedness.
Do not let my lips utter anything that is ungodly 
    or my feet move even a step in any of the paths of death,
    but hold my whole spirit, soul, and body in a righteous fear of you.
Keep me comfortable in the hope of your favor,
    through Jesus Christ, my blessed Lord and only Savior.
Amen.
 
John Kettlewell, 1653-1695, English clergyman and devotional writer
 
___________________________
 
 
May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. 
May your whole spirit, soul and body 
    be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. 
The one who calls you is faithful, and he will do it.

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receiving with humility

/ Eric Mathews / Leave a comment

photo by KATRIN BOLOVTSOVA via Pexels

 
What do we have heavenly Father,
    that we have not received from you?
Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above,
    coming down from the Father of lights.
And because everything we have is yours 
    – whether for body or soul –
    how can we be proud, boasting about things 
    that are not even our own?
And as you give, so you are also able to take away again.
And you will, when your gifts are abused, won’t you?
If we fail to acknowledge that you are the giver?
 
So take away all my arrogance and pride.
Instead, graft in true humility, 
    so I may know that you are the giver of all good things,
    and be thankful for them,
    and use them for your glory and the good of my neighbor.
Grant also that I may not glory in earthly creatures,
    but in you alone.
You bring mercy, equity, and righteousness on earth,
    and to you alone be all glory, amen.
 
Thomas Becon, 1511–1567, English Protestant reformer Norfolk
 
______________________________
 
 
Do not be deceived, my beloved brothers. 
Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, 
    coming down from the Father of lights, 
    with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change

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God’s rescue operation and new creation

/ Eric Mathews / Leave a comment

image by geralt via pixabay

 
Lord, we dream about justice.
We glimpse for a moment, 
    a world at one, a world put to rights, a world where things work out, 
    where societies function fairly and efficiently,
    where we not only know what we ought to do but actually do it.
And then we wake up and come back to reality.
 
…from the very beginning, two thousand years ago,
we the followers of Jesus have always maintained that
 
You took the tears of the world and made them Your own,
    carrying them all the way to Your cruel and unjust death
    to carry out God’s rescue operation,
and that You took the joy of the world and brought it to new birth
    as You rose from the dead and thereby launched God’s new creation.
 
N.T. Wright, 1948-, British New Testament Scholar, retired bishop
 
______________________
 
 
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: 
The old has gone, the new is here!  
All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ 
and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: 
    that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, 
    not counting people’s sins against them. 
And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation.
 

Jesus, fight for me against Satan

/ Eric Mathews / Leave a comment
 
Lord Jehovah,
judge my cause and fight for me against Satan and his host.
Lay the strong one low!
 
I have cast off his yoke, and renounced his cursed power.
He doubly hates this, and longs to seize me as his prey.
 
I flee to you and to your cross for help.
He would win if you did not deliver me – but you have already defeated him.
 
Do not let him conquer me! Put him to shame, O Lord my God! 
Give me victory!
 
It is not strength that wins; my weakness is my shield.
In lowly trust we fight the fight, and weakness wins the battle.
 
So give me a lowly heart, and cast away each prideful thought.
Let gentleness and love come in instead, and abide in my life.
 
Your will, not mine, be done. I resist my selfish desires.
Let me ever and always be your servant only.
 
Jesus, I flee to you. I cling to your cross.
Save me from Satan’s hellish power and pluck me from his grasp.
 
So I will praise you, Lord, and adore your great name.
With Father and Spirit one, forever and ever, amen.
 
Ephrem the Syrian, c.306-373, Syrian hymn writer and theologian
 
____________________________
 
 
Be sober-minded; be watchful. 
Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. 
Resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same kinds of suffering 
   are being experienced by your brotherhood throughout the world. 
And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, 
    who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, 
    will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you. 
To him be the dominion forever and ever. Amen.
 

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prayer for bleary-eyed parents

/ Eric Mathews / Leave a comment
Mother and Child by Julius Gari Melchers, Art Institute of Chicago
 
 
O Lord, you who hold all things together, 
    help me. I pray, not to lose my mind; 
you who calmed the tempest,
    help me not to lose my temper;
you who promised rest to the weary,
    speak a word of peace to my tired body;
you who healed the blind,
    open my eyes to see your presence in the dark;
you who speak things into life,
    help me to hear your small voice over the din of my own noisy mind;
you who welcomed the children,
    take care of my own;
and you who promised to be with us always,
    be with me now in my hour of need,
    so that I may feel your tangible care.
I pray this in the name of Jesus, the Compassionate One,
Amen,
 
W, David O. Taylor, American theologian and Anglican priest
 
_________________________
 
 
Just as parents are kind
    to their children,
the Lord is kind
    to all who worship him,
because he knows
    we are made of dust.

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