For no one is life a continuous collection of only happy and pleasant experiences. For everyone darkness and difficulties descend upon us, and then what happens? Where do we turn? Out of the depths we are likely to look to God for assistance and support. He hears and responds to everyone, not as we ask, perhaps, but He always does respond. Therefore on this and all Sundays, let us, with confidence, worship the God to whom we can always turn in times of uncertainty and distress.
Pastoral Prayer
We thank Thee, Lord God, for the privilege and opportunity of prayer, whereby we may turn to Thee who art always more ready to hear us than we are to pray. We praise Thee for Thy divine constancy, and for the assurance we have that Thou art always watching out for us. When problems engulf us, and our confidence is shaken, we ask Thee to intervene in our existence in such a way that we may trust beyond doubt that Thou art there, and that Thy will for us is only for good.
We pray for everyone whose faith is currently being sorely tested: by illness, grief, life circumstances which have shaken their resolve, the spiritual attacks of others which have eroded their convictions and commitment, and by events which seem to cast doubt upon things which heretofore have always been certainties to them. And as we pray for those who are having crises of faith, we also give Thee thanks for those who recently have experienced faith for the first time, and whose lives have taken a very positive turn as a result. Be with all Thy daughters and sons in our faith pilgrimages, O loving Father of us all.
We pray in particular for people who currently are feeling the weight of depression, either depression which is circumstantial, and which has surrounded them because of a series of unfortunate events, or because they are frequently or constantly subject to depression. When they cry to Thee from the depths, may they feel the power of Thy presence with them as they move through the painful stages of their depression. Because we have known renewed strength which we believe could have come only from Thee, we ask that Thou wouldst clearly grant these people also to know anew or for the first time the restorative knowledge of Thy loving presence in their troubled lives. These and all our prayers we make in Jesus’ name, now praying together as he instructed his followers, saying, Our Father….