Daily Prayers Wednesday, 28 September 2022
Good morning, Cornerstone friends.
We have reached that point in the year when days are shorter than nights.
Although we have another month before the clocks change it is colder in the mornings.
Let us enjoy the season of fruits and thank God for the variety of the seasons.
O Lord, God of my salvation, I have cried day and night before you.
Let my prayer come into your presence; incline your ear to my cry.
For my soul is full of troubles; my life draws near to the land of death.
I am counted as one gone down to the Pit; I am like one who has no strength.
Lost among the dead, like the slain who lie in the grave.
Whom you remember no more, for they are cut off from your hand.
Lord, I have called daily upon you: I have stretched out my hands to you.
You alone are my refuge, my portion in the land of the living.
Psalm 88: 1–6 & 11
In the depth of our isolation we cry to you, Lord God;
give light in our darkness and bring us out of the prison of despair
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen
(Jesus and his disciples were travelling from Galilee to Jerusalem)
As they were going along the road, someone said to him, ‘I will follow you wherever you go.’ And Jesus said to him, ‘Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.’ To another he said, ‘Follow me.’ But he said, ‘Lord, first let me go and bury my father.’ But Jesus said to him, ‘Let the dead bury their own dead; but as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God.’ Another said, ‘I will follow you, Lord; but let me first say farewell to those at my home.’ Jesus said to him, ‘No one who puts a hand to the plough and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.’
Luke 9: 57–62
Psalm 88 is another of the psalms where the writer is feeling very low and seeking a way out of their troubles.
We do not have to be that desperate to call upon God to ‘give light in our darkness.’
We do not have to think of ourselves so much and make ourselves into a victim when God has made us free.
The gospel also has some harsh message about choosing our priorities.
The example of putting ones ‘hand to the plough’ is not so effective in our day.
I can recall as a six-year-old boy watching my grandfather follow two large horses with a plough in a stony field on a slope. One foot in the rut and one foot higher on the unploughed earth to keep a straight furrow. It was in the period just after the end of the Second World War and there was a shortage of diesel fuel. Ploughing like this required total concentration as it did in the Holy Land in Christ’s time when they used men or oxen to pull a plough.
Looking back over our journey is not a wrong thing.
It can be useful, but there are some things so important that we have to abandon everything else to achieve them.
That is the message. The other one is that we only have today to get today’s priorities achieved.
This prayer time could be one of them.
Let us pray for the church.
We pray for our mission at Cornerstone to the people in the city centre of Milton Keynes
and for the church witnessing in every part of the world.
Pray that we may be faithful to the work of God, each in our place
so that we show the love of God to all those who do not enter our doors to worship him.
God, who in generous mercy sent the Holy Spirit upon your church in the burning fire of your love:
grant that your people may be fervent in the fellowship of the gospel that, always abiding in you,
they may be found steadfast in faith and active in service; through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen
The world appears to have greater division and conflict each time we look around us.
In our country the economic background leaves very many unable to see how they can pay for even basic needs.
The government has announced new ways of dealing with the problem
but these are leading to increased interest rates,
which make all those things we buy more expensive which does not help solve the problem.
Yet we are still in a stable country with rule of law and public services.
The majority of people in the world do not have what even the poorest in our country have.
We in this country are taking more from the environment that the earth can sustain for ever,
so we need that concern in our prayers too.
God of all, source and goal of community, whose will it is that all your people enjoy fullness of life:
May we be builders of community, caring for your good earth here and world-wide
and as partners with the poor, signs of your ever friendly love;
that we may delight in diversity, choose solidarity, work for the common good;
for you are that love which binds us together, one God now and for ever.
Amen
Lord, my thoughts turn so easily on myself.
Turn them to you and outward to your other children, that I may forget myself and lose all fear of anxiety, all self-seeking and self-consciousness as I worship you and in my love for others.
O save me from myself to worship, love and serve in perfect freedom.
Amen
Have a day appreciating the season and spreading love for the earth and for other people.
Don Head
