Snare, Prayer, Take Care

Matterofprayer: A Year of Everyday Prayers – Thursday, January 7, 2016

Snare, Prayer, Take Care

Anyone can get tripped up. Fall on their face, sometimes. Tripped up in my thought life, my words, or my actions. It can happen to anyone.

For example: when I try to stay on the beam in any particular behavior or activity, I often need help from my friends. If I end up isolated or alone, that is not a good scenario for me. Thank God I have friends and family who can rally around.

I realize some people don’t have many healthy relationships. However, God can assist, and bring certain people into our lives to remedy those kinds of lacks and losses. And, we can end up with families of choice. Good friends, too.

Dear Lord, thank You for Your gift of relationships. Build up our relationships with our significant others; our families, our friends, our spouses. Draw me close to those people I love. You have promised to deliver us from the evils in this world—those things that are physical, emotional, psychological, or spiritual evils.

Protect me with Your power, and remain a refuge for me to run to when I am isolated, filled with anxiety, or bedeviled. Gracious God, You are my stronghold. You can help all of us avoid harm, distress, temptation and evil. You are faithful, and for that I am so grateful. Thankful. Thank You, God.

@chaplaineliza

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Why not visit my sister blogs, “the best of” A Year of Being Kind.   @chaplaineliza And, read my sermons from Pastor, Preacher Pray-er

Wounds Too Deep for Us to Heal

Matterofprayer: A Year of Everyday Prayers – Saturday, October 24, 2015

Wounds Too Deep for Us to Heal

Dear Lord, I feel so inadequate.

Just looking at this prayer for today, I do not say I chose it. Instead, it patiently waited for me to read it, and captured my heart, my soul. Pulled my heartstrings, to boot.

The prayer for today from The Oxford Book of Prayer concerns “Deliver Us from Evil” (Prayer 454, page 135) [1] The prayer is in a section entitled Compassion. It is taken from a collection entitled Contemporary Prayers for Public Worship, edited by Caryl Micklem.

“Lord, the wounds of this world are too deep for us to heal. We have to bring men and women to You and ask You to look after them—the sick in body and mind, the withered in spirit, the victims of greed and injustice, the prisoners of grief.”

O gracious God! My chaplain’s heart breaks, just reading this first section. Such a number of dear ones come to mind from mention in this paragraph alone! I know You know each name that comes to mind. I know You know each situation so much better than I can possibly know myself. Dear Lord, gracious God, I lift my deep and earnest cries to You.

“And yet, our Father, do not let our prayers excuse us from paying the price of compassion.”

Oh! Piercing me in the heart, God! How often and how many times do I allow surface, peripheral prayers to salve my wounded pastor’s heart? Forgive me, dear Lord.

“Make us generous with the resources You have entrusted to us. Let Your work of rescue be done in us and through us all.”

Dear Lord … when I realize what bounty You have given to me and my family, how can I help but be generous? Sure, I can feel inadequate, comparing myself and our small apartment to others who live in this community, in a generally well-off suburb of Chicago.

And, yet. And, yet, when I look at poverty around this country, especially around the world, I shudder. I realize how much stuff I have. I realize how blessed I am. I bow my face to the floor to thank You for so many things. Like a job I enjoy, good health, a loving husband and family, wonderful friends, electronics at our fingertips, food in our kitchen, abundant clothing to wear.

Gracious God, help me to be generous with all You have entrusted to me. Lord, in Your mercy, hear my earnest prayers.

@chaplaineliza

Like what you read? Disagree? Share your thoughts with your loved ones and continue the conversation.

Why not visit my sister blogs, “the best of” A Year of Being Kind.   @chaplaineliza And, read my sermons from Pastor, Preacher Pray-er

[1] The Oxford Book of Prayer, edited by George Appleton. (New York: Oxford University Press, reissued 2009), 135.

Teach Me Patience, Lord

Matterofprayer: A Year of Everyday Prayers – Friday, October 23, 2015

Teach Me Patience, Lord

People have recognized their need for patience for a very long time. For centuries. Suffering is a common thread in prayer, too. When I see patience (in prayer) coupled with suffering (in prayer), I know that I am looking at someone well accustomed to prayer.

The prayer I chose for today from The Oxford Book of Prayer concerns “Deliver Us from Evil.” (Prayer 437, page 130) [1] The prayer is in a section entitled Suffering. Written by the English churchman Thomas Fuller (1608-61), this brief, pithy prayer appears below.

“Lord, teach me the art of patience whilst I am well, and give me the use of it when I am sick. In that day either lighten my burden or strengthen my back. Make me, who so often in my health have discovered my weakness presuming on my own strength, to be strong in my sickness when I solely rely on Thy assistance.”

I can’t help but think of the quote “O Lord, give me patience. And, give it to me right now!” This first line of this humorous prayer (above, here) is a joke, yes. But it is also disturbingly true. Lord, O, how I need those reminders.

God, to give You the option and decision to pray for either a stopping of Burdens or to strengthen me for the road again? (What insight. What a way with words.) Which is followed by an honest and forthright description of himself : my goodness, he is presumptuous. Just like me. And at the end of the prayer? Fuller speaks plainly: “I solely rely on Thy assistance.”

Ah, yes. Whatever the situation, Fuller has the words. (He was a wordsmith by repute, and a marvelous preacher, too.) Lord, give me the presence of mind as well as quickness of speech. In Jesus’ name I pray, amen.

@chaplaineliza

Like what you read? Disagree? Share your thoughts with your loved ones and continue the conversation.

Why not visit my sister blogs, “the best of” A Year of Being Kind.   @chaplaineliza And, read my sermons from Pastor, Preacher Pray-er

[1] The Oxford Book of Prayer, edited by George Appleton. (New York: Oxford University Press, reissued 2009), 130.