Daily Prayers Friday, 7 January 2022
Welcome to Friday’s prayers at the start of the New Year.
I’m not a great believer in New Year resolutions. Too often in my youth I tried to make the same fresh start at the beginning of January and found I couldn’t sustain the perfection I was aiming for.
However, I do think it helps us if we can see each new day as an opportunity to aim to do our best in everything we do. How wonderful it is to know that we can seek God’s forgiveness if we fail, but it does behove us to make our best efforts to act in the way he would wish us to.
I think we could apply the same thinking to the way that decisions are made at national level and throughout the world. It is so easy to despair when we see so many people living in poverty or in oppressive regimes while the people in power seem unable or unwilling to reach out and help them. Perhaps we might respond to this by praying both for those who suffer and those who have the power to ease that suffering.
Let us pray:
Loving God, we are overwhelmed by your patience and generosity – you forgive us again and again, whenever we fail to live up to our best intentions. We come to you, humbly asking forgivenesss, and seeking your blessing to make a fresh start today. We ask you to give us strength and a clear focus to live our lives for you day by day.
We bring to you all those who are struggling with daily life, whether they are finding it hard to meet their bills, combatting poor health or feeling lonely and isolated. We ask that they may know you close to them and that they may receive the help and support they need to persevere with the challenges they face.
Lord, in your mercy,
Hear our prayer.
We thank you for all those who work to provide us with the services we so often take for granted day by day. Delivery drivers and postal workers, shop workers and those who produce our food. May they be well rewarded by cheerful and friendly customers and by appropriate levels of pay for the service they give.
Lord, in your mercy,
Hear our prayer.
We thank you that we have an efficient and accessible health service available to us. Forgive our impatience if we sometimes complain when it takes a while to get a medical appointment. Others across the world are lucky to have a doctor available to them at all. We pray for those who have no local health service they can call on, because the trained staff are spread so thinly across the countries where they live. Show us how we can support those organisations which work to alleviate their suffering.
Lord, in your mercy,
Hear our prayer.
We pray for a more just and equal sharing of the world’s resources, thanking you for the work of Traidcraft and other organisations which, rooted in Christian principles of justice for the poor and the value and dignity of everyone, help to make it possible for the people who produce goods we use to earn a reasonable living which matches the energy they expend. Remind us to do all we can to support these organisations and to work for more justice in trade.
Lord, in your mercy,
Hear our prayer.
Now let us join in with or prayerfully follow the words of this hymn, which reminds us that, with our help, it is God that can bring about the changes needed in our unfair world.
Please click on the link below:
1 For the healing of the nations,
Lord, we pray with one accord;
for a just and equal sharing
of the things that earth affords;
To a life of love in action
help us rise and pledge our word.
2 Lead us forward into freedom;
from despair your world release,
that, redeemed from war and hatred,
all may come and go in peace.
Show us how through care and goodness
fear will die and hope increase.
3 All that kills abundant living,
let it from the earth be banned;
pride of status, race, or schooling,
dogmas that obscure your plan.
In our common quest for justice
may we hallow life’s brief span.
4 You, Creator God, have written
your great name on humankind;
for our growing in your likeness
bring the life of Christ to mind,
that by our response and service
earth its destiny may find.
And we finish our prayer time with a prayer I saw today on the internet, written by Rebecca Barlow Jordan:
“Today’s a new day, a chance for a new start. Yesterday is gone and with it any regrets, mistakes, or failures I may have experienced. It’s a good day to be glad and give thanks, and I do, Lord. Thank you for today, a new opportunity to love, give, and be all that you want me to be.”
Let’s say The Grace together:
May the Grace of our Lord, Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with us all, evermore.
Amen
Rosemary Kearsey
