12 January 2025 Prayer for the Chaplain, Deacon, Pastor

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God of Suprise, you always blow my expectations out of the water! Expectations of myself, the people I serve, my family, complex situations in the world and in my life. My imagination is so limited when it comes to seeing how you see. I mean, thank you, God! I am grateful that all of creation and all of ministry is not limited by my own imagination. So stir up your Holy Spirit in me to drive out my fear and to expand my vision and nudge my faith to see you instead of seeing something I’d run from in an instant. Drive out my fear of not being enough. My fear or angst about annual meetings or power dynamics or church politics that cause me to question the why of it all. Wash me in your reality. Shake me free from my ego. Free me to see your love that is alive and well within me. Give me the guts to share your love, set me free from my fear, and remind me that I am yours first. And that identity is what gives me life and breath.

Help me to breathe out your love to those closest to me in my life. Ministry can be so hard on families, so help me to remember and live into my vocations and callings outside of being a pastor or a deacon or a chaplain. 

Stir up your Holy Spirit in my colleagues across southern Minnesota. Help us to see new life in the midst of endings. Send us into each other’s lives to be good colleagues and friends. Amen.

Dear Pastor, Dear Deacon, Dear Chaplain – you are loved by God. You are precious in God’s sight. Breathe that promise in deeply so you can breathe it out with the power of the Holy Spirit. Don’t be afraid, God is with you in all the things.