The Christian life, rightly lived, is a struggle. Should we do this, or should we do that? What does God want from us? No matter what we do, we know that many times we fail to accomplish what we set out to do. God does not require perfection of us, but rather discipleship, not flawless behavior but faithful action. Through everything, God goes with us to guide and uphold us. Therefore let us, with confidence, worship the God of loving guidance.
Pastoral Prayer
Loving God, Thou hast created us, and created us good. We thank Thee for all the impulses within us to seek to do the good and to respond to the leading of Thy spirit within our lives. But we also confess that often we attempt to do Thy will and yet fail to do it, or we may perversely not even attempt to follow Thy laws. In the midst of this dilemma, we may think of ourselves more highly than we ought to think, supposing that if we ignore our shortcomings, Thou also wilt ignore them. Enable us to own up to our sins, O God, to ask forgiveness for them, and then to move on beyond them as we seek once again to try to follow Thee, our slate having been made clean by Thy perpetual grace.
We pray for people who suppose themselves to be without blemish, who go through life deluding themselves into imagining that every day in every way they have completed all Thy commandments. Grant to them a clearer understanding of themselves and their own inevitable failures and foibles. We pray for people who are so overwhelmed by the knowledge of their mistakes that they become catatonic, unable to do anything at all for fear of undoing everything. We pray for those who never think about right or wrong, but who blithely go through life doing whatever suits their fancy. All of us stand in need of Thy grace, Lord God, whether we acknowledge it or not or seek it or not. Pour out Thy grace on people who are lost without Thee, all of whom Thou art seeking to find.
We remember again the flood of refugees who are fleeing places of warfare and hatred, and who seek comfort and support in places totally strange to them. Bless the leaders of various nations who are striving to create safe havens, but are finding great resistance from their own citizens for attempting to do so. Open the hearts of all of us who have lived most if not all of our lives with great plenty to those who suddenly find themselves with nothing, not even a place to lie down in sleep. Give to those of us who experience relatively little disruption in our lives the ability to sense and to feel the turbulence of lives thrown into a great maelstrom of uncertainly and anxiety. These things we ask in the name of Jesus, who taught us to care for the least, the last, and the lost. Now we pray as he taught his disciples, saying, Our Father….