Category: Prayer items

This Sunday (11 July), Christians across the country – and further afield – will join together in prayer and reflection at 7pm in response to the pandemic.

As with previous weeks during lockdown, 15 Christian churches and organisations across the country, including the Church of Scotland, have co-signed the letter calling for prayer.

Scottish Christians have been continuing to answer the call to pray at the same time each week, and the Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, Lord Wallace, is taking part alongside them.

“We should always be mindful for the wisdom handed down to us from past generations; much of it learned the hard way, from mistakes made and consequences suffered,” Lord Wallace said.

“So, too, we are grateful for the richness that comes to us from living alongside people of other traditions. In our day and generation we must surely allow our minds and hearts to be open so that we can risk getting to know them and learning from them.

“In this pandemic, our responsibility is to come together and offer our prayers for all the many diverse expressions of our Christian faith that enrich life, as we have done for many months now.

“A pattern has been set for us, lived out in Jesus Christ, made possible by the Spirit. May we follow in His way, and be guided by the one over-riding rule of love in all that we say and do.”

This week’s letter accompanying the prayer, which is also available in Gaelic (a copy of which will be available to read here soon), states:

“What is the future shape of the society in which we live? To ask the question is to invite any number of different answers and many of the answers will reflect the uncertainty of the times.

“In all of our lives, there is perhaps a greater element of uncertainty than there has been in previous years. Each of us will respond to the challenges of our times in different ways and many will ponder the question and ask: What does the future hold?

“The Apostle Paul lived within the society of his time and offers us a vision of our place within the world. That vision is shaped by an understanding of how we share in the purpose and plan of the ‘God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ’. We share in that understanding as those who have received the ‘promised Holy Spirit’. Within this vision, we find that we are adopted as the children of God and discover our place according to the purpose and plan of God. (Ephesians 1: 3-14)

“If we cannot yet describe the future shape of our society, we know that, whatever the future holds, we live as those whose destiny is shaped by the purpose and plan of God.

We pray:

God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
You adopt us as Your children
And include us within Your purposes.
May we find our place in the world and purpose for our lives
As we respond to Your gracious initiative in Christ.
Lord, in Your mercy,
Hear our prayer.

God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
You adopt us as Your children
And offer to us forgiveness.
May we know the healing power of forgiveness
And offer forgiveness according to the measure that we have been forgiven.
Lord, in Your mercy,
Hear our prayer.

God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
You adopt us as Your children
And make known Your intention
To gather together all things in heaven and earth.
May our lives on earth reflect the life of the world that is to come.
Lord, in Your mercy,
Hear our prayer.

God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
You adopt us as Your children
And make known to us the word of truth.
May we always speak according to the truth
And may our words reflect the One who came to us full of grace and truth.
Lord, in Your mercy,
Hear our prayer.

God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
You adopt us as Your children
And seal us with the promised Holy Spirit
May we rediscover our place in the world and renew the purpose of our lives
As we receive the gracious gift of Your Spirit.
Lord, in Your mercy,
Hear our prayer.

This Sunday (4 July), as over 16 million people plan to join the first national Thank You Day, Christians across the country – and further afield – will join together in prayer and reflection at 7pm in response to the pandemic.

As with previous weeks during lockdown, 15 Christian churches and organisations across the country, including the Church of Scotland, have co-signed the letter calling for prayer.

Scottish Christians have been continuing to answer the call to pray at the same time each week, and the Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, Lord Wallace, is taking part alongside them.

“We should always be mindful for the wisdom handed down to us from past generations; much of it learned the hard way, from mistakes made and consequences suffered,” Lord Wallace said.

“So, too, we are grateful for the richness that comes to us from living alongside people of other traditions. In our day and generation we must surely allow our minds and hearts to be open so that we can risk getting to know them and learning from them.

“In this pandemic, our responsibility is to come together and offer our prayers for all the many diverse expressions of our Christian faith that enrich life, as we have done for many months now.

“A pattern has been set for us, lived out in Jesus Christ, made possible by the Spirit. May we follow in His way, and be guided by the one over-riding rule of love in all that we say and do.

This week’s letter accompanying the prayer, which is also available in Gaelic, states:

“At certain times in our experience we are especially conscious of our strengths and, at other times, of our weaknesses.

“In our times of perceived strength, we are confident of our capacities and abilities. In our times of perceived weakness, it is often otherwise. We might easily imagine that it is in the former situation that God is especially close to us. However, the experience of faith and of the grace of God suggests otherwise.

“The Apostle Paul discovered this in the course of his own spiritual experience and came to realise the sufficiency of the grace of God in his life. This discovery is made in the times when he senses that he is at his weakest and not in his times of perceived strength. (2 Corinthians 12: 9)

“In the spiritual journey that each one of us makes, the sufficiency of God is often known when we come to the end of our own strength and discover the ever-renewed grace of God.”

We pray:

God, whose grace is revealed,
In the One who embraces the Cross,
May we know the sufficiency of Your grace
In the times of our deepest need.
Lord, in Your mercy,
Hear our prayer.

God, whose grace is revealed,
In the One who embraces the Cross,
May we walk in the company of those who suffer
And so share in the grace that You provide.
Lord, in Your mercy,
Hear our prayer.

God, whose grace is revealed,
In the One who embraces the Cross,
May we experience the strength You provide
In the times of our greatest weakness.
Lord, in Your mercy,
Hear our prayer.

God, whose grace is revealed,
In the One who embraces the Cross,
May our lives be renewed as we live out our response to Your grace
And so share in the community of grace.
Lord, in Your mercy,
Hear our prayer.

God, whose grace is revealed,
In the One who embraces the Cross,
May Your grace, sufficient in days past,
Be sufficient in all the days that are to come.
Lord, in Your mercy,
Hear our prayer.

My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going.

I do not see the road ahead of me.

I cannot know for certain where it will end.

nor do I really know myself,

and the fact that I think I am following your will

does not mean that I am actually doing so.

But I believe that the desire to please you

does in fact please you.

And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing

I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire.

And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road,

though I may know nothing about it.

Therefore will I trust you always though

I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death

.I will not fear, for you are ever with me,

and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.

~Thomas Merton #thedailythomasmerton