Sundays after Easter
Prayer
Pastoral Prayers For All Seasons
Object:
Our Creator and Savior, we witness that your hand is unwavering as you guide the destiny of all people. In our triumphs your power and wisdom can be seen. Even in the midst of all our tragic defeats and sinfulness your purposes go forward unmarred and unchanged. You accomplish your will through our love and in spite of our fear. You are ever the same.
Our prayer today is for constancy. Without our understanding why, some of our days are cheerful, smiling, and kind. Other days are surly and mean. First we walk along a mountain pathway exhilarated and joyful; then we are in a valley devoid of hope and meaning. We don't set out to be so changeable and unpredictable, Lord.
You know we have tried to set our lives on a steady, even keel. We have vowed to remember the mountain top when we are depressed, and to temper our days of enthusiasm with the memories of our defeats. Yet our ascents and descents rise and fall sharply despite our best conscious efforts.
Therefore, today we offer up to you our fickleness and seek out your Spirit, which is reliable every day, to enter our lives. Have your way with us that we might be the useful and productive persons we were created to be. Let us find our steadiness in you.
We thank you that whether we are on the mountaintop or in the valley, you are with us. No mood of ours excludes you. No quick change of our emotions drives you away.
Hear, dear God, the needs of your children as we lift up our confessions to you. Bind our wounds, comfort our grief, strengthen our resolve, and guide our footsteps. In the name of Christ we pray. Amen.
Our prayer today is for constancy. Without our understanding why, some of our days are cheerful, smiling, and kind. Other days are surly and mean. First we walk along a mountain pathway exhilarated and joyful; then we are in a valley devoid of hope and meaning. We don't set out to be so changeable and unpredictable, Lord.
You know we have tried to set our lives on a steady, even keel. We have vowed to remember the mountain top when we are depressed, and to temper our days of enthusiasm with the memories of our defeats. Yet our ascents and descents rise and fall sharply despite our best conscious efforts.
Therefore, today we offer up to you our fickleness and seek out your Spirit, which is reliable every day, to enter our lives. Have your way with us that we might be the useful and productive persons we were created to be. Let us find our steadiness in you.
We thank you that whether we are on the mountaintop or in the valley, you are with us. No mood of ours excludes you. No quick change of our emotions drives you away.
Hear, dear God, the needs of your children as we lift up our confessions to you. Bind our wounds, comfort our grief, strengthen our resolve, and guide our footsteps. In the name of Christ we pray. Amen.
