Daily Prayers Monday, 5 September 2022

Good morning, my Cornerstone Friends, at the beginning of autumn. Let’s start the day in praise:

We thank you Lord for this new day as summer is sliding into autumn.
We praise you for the beauty that surrounds us: the abundance of flower and ripening fruit,
the sun lower in the sky and refreshing rain.
Help us to live this day as people refreshed, looking forward to whatever the day may hold for us.

Amen

My most vivid memory of summer’s end when I was a child was of new shoes.
Having spent a large part of the summer holidays running barefoot
or at most in sneakers to play backyard baseball,
getting fitted for proper leather shoes marked the key turning point in the year –
returning to school.
Most children are now in ‘preparation’ mode, getting ready to go back to school,
freshly washed and ironed, looking forward to a new routine, new horizons and fresh challenges.

Paul wrote to the Colossians about new clothes in Chapter 3:

Now you are dressed in a new wardrobe. Every item of your new way of life is custom-made by the Creator, with his label on it. All the old fashions are now obsolete. Words like Jewish and non-Jewish, religious an irreligious, insider and outsider, uncivilised and uncouth, slave and free mean nothing. From now on, everyone is defined by Christ, everyone is included in Christ.

   So, chosen by God for this new life of love, dress in the wardrobe God picked out for you: compassion, kindness, humility, quiet strength, discipline. Be even-tempered, content with second place, quick to forgive an offence. Forgive as quickly and completely as the Master forgave you. And regardless of what else you put on, wear love. It’s your basic, all-purpose garment. Never be without it.

May we never be without out love in all our ways.

Let’s pray for our children as they prepare this week:

Lord, we ask your blessing on children and young people
as they prepare to return to school or college or university.
Give them a renewed thirst for learning, a fresh curiosity to explore new ideas,
and a determination to make a worthy contribution to the community.
Give us a good measure of patience for the task
to nurture our young people in character as in health.
Help us inspire them to become everything you want them to be
and may we do all this in your love.

Amen

As we set off into a new season,
may we all be clothed in that all-purpose garment of Christ, for all the world to see.
May we do and say everything today in the name of Jesus
and through him give thanks to God the Father.

Cheryl Montgomery