Listening for the Voice

This is the prayer that I wrote for Sunday's pastoral prayer.  I often post other people's prayers, so I thought I would include one of mine.

Prayer

Lord God , Loving God, Faithful God, On this cold January morning we come to you.  We kneel at your throne, We come in gratitude and in supplication

We are grateful that you are with us, you  - our God,  our help in ages past and our hope for days to come.  As we look back on this week, we thank you for the strength and healing and hope that we have received.  And we trust in your presence, your love and the power of the holy spirit that is with us now.

Open our hearts, our minds, our souls, our ears to your love and your way of truth.   May we hear your voice in the wilderness..

Lord, this pandemic goes on and on and now we learn that the covid is mutating.  It continues to be a danger to our health and the community that we love.  We lift up to you  those who are suffering right now, those who are isolated, for those who are exhausted from working on the front lines.

May we hear your voice guiding us, strengthening us and giving us hope

Lord, so many people are suffering economically at this time.  We pray for those who are without work . We lift up to you those who need  food and homes  and financial stability

May we hear your voice guiding us to serve, strengthening our faith and giving hope to all who are in need.

Lord our nation is suffering through political division and conflicting loyalties. We have been horrified by the riots at the Capitol building and the death and destruction of that day. We lift up to you all who  are in leadership.  May they be guided by your vision of unity, reconciliation, truth and peace.

May we hear your voice guiding us, strengthening us, giving us hope

We come together this morning to center our lives on you.  May we surrender to your love and follow your way of humility, compassion and faith in God.

May we be open to your call upon our individual lives.  Open our ears so that we might hear you calling our names.  May  we  - as followers of Jesus - be a source of wisdom, healing and hope for this fragmented  and broken world.

We pray all of this in the name of Jesus