FCCR-ACE Prayer Blog

Congregationalists Learning to Pray

the day is almost past God. i have been weary today, feeling weighed down by an appendage that does not feel right, that aches. and i want to have it be normal again. but – there is always a “but” with you, God isn’t there (the learning moment) – but, i am mindful of the insignificance of my weariness, my restlessness, my desire to move on, when i consider the weight that others carry.
thank you for time at peter sanborn today, because when we are with others we are always better than we are alone. thank you for welcoming smiles from the residents, thank you for musicians and for children and for the old ones who grace my life.
i am weary now, and i will rest tonight, in the certain knowledge of your love, and the clear memory of the blessings which are so bountiful in my life.

amen

Hi God,

Remind me that folding laundry
is a spiritual practice.
Sometimes it seems rather a bother:
fold, put away, then… bang!
It’s all out and dirty again.

I guess laundry is another reminder
of the impermance of things:
clean one day, dirty the next.
Sort of like our souls:
we confess, resolve to do better,
our lives brighten,
then we fall back into sin,
or whatever one wishes to call it.

So my prayer today
is that you help us remember
that in striving we can find meaning;
and that this rembrance
will spur us to further striving,
striving to become one with you
and with each other.

Also, please have mercy on my soul
sinner though I continue to be.

Amen

Dear God,

As the FCC Melrose folks begin planning for their summer mission trip to DC please bless the organizers and the particpants and the folks for whom their work might help with fortitude and patience and understanding.

God I offer up thanks that the seed was sown for this possible intrachurch cooperation in doing work in your name. I pray that some FCCR youth learn of the invitation and are able to benefit from these fledgling relationships. I pray that other FCCR adults who have interest in Mission likewise volunteer their talents.

God I pray that our longing to accomplish mission work does not get sidetracked with personal inertia mentioned earlier and that communication happens to the broader community so that your good news makes it to the ears of those who can act upon the invitation.

Amen

Good and loving – and transforming – God,
thank you for making us new.
A few days ago in our prayer journal
we were invited to consider what Jesus might ask us to leave behind
that we might more closely follow him.
In response I drew – as best I could – two hands
with palms up-turned and open to set free the habit I named and wrote above,
that I might be leave behind for Christ.

And in the next days I was aware that I was thinking in new ways
about a relationship that had felt strained to me –
all out of my expectations of how exchanges “should” play out.
And then I knew – I had experienced my first step in being set free,
of knowing release from this way of being
that has been neither helpful nor loving.

The past two days dear God, I have read about grace…
Quinn Caldwell wrote the other day
“It turns out that with God,
[our covenantal relationship is] not so much a quid pro quo as a quid pro nil.
The promise, the salvation, the future on offer to every living thing is free,
and there’s nothing you …can do to earn it, or to lose it.”
Today Ron Buford, having been accused of offering in his preaching, “cheap grace”,
reported his response saying “Thank you. God’s grace is so cheap, it’s free!”

So thank you God for your ever-available, life-giving,
sin-forgiving, new-life-making, affordable-across-the-board grace,
by which we are set free and made new, day by day.

Amen

Hi God,

I’m feeling a lot of inertia today.
Sometimes when we
“have left undone the things
which we ought to have done”,
it was just personal inertia
holding us back from starting.
At least I think
that is what happens with me.

So my prayer today
is that you help us
overcome personal inertia,
so that we can
do the things we ought.
Also help us learn to differentiate
between what is and is not important,
so that we can focus our efforts on the latter.

Also, I ask that you
have mercy on my soul,
sinner though I surely be.

Amen