24 November 2024 Prayer for the Pastor, Deacon, Chaplain
If you like, you can listen to Laura pray for you right here: http://
You are the one I can count on, God. No matter what the state of my life is, you are here. With me. Even when I’d like to hide or when I act like perhaps there is another god in my life, you persist. You seep into the cracks of my faith. You are a gentle reminder. You are a brisk and sharp wind on the days I need waking up. However it is that you show up for me, it is always shot through with your love. Love that unearths me from false hope and promises that turn out to be smoke and mirrors. Your love that is truth. The Truth with a capital T. And when your Truth is spoken and lived and present, it makes the world look mad. The world you love so very much. Your Truth doesn’t look like the truths I come up with on my own. Even my best efforts dissipate under the slightest pressure without your love and Truth.
So faithful God, open my heart today. To see your Truth, your love, your presence in my reality. Help me speak your Truth that makes my voice shake and my heart leap. Truth that points beyond what I can see or do and only points to what you see, what you are doing. Help me glimpse even a little of what you see in this experiment of being church. Of being a leader in this human institution. Your ways are not my ways, but you bring me along. You give me eyes to see and a heart to love.
Help me love myself today, with love from you. Because then I have a chance at loving those I am called to do ministry with. And I have a shot at showing love to those who are my dearest, my beloveds, my closest ones.
And I pray for my ELCA colleagues in southern Minnesota who are also preparing their hearts and asking for your strength and wisdom, for your truth to lead all the things. Thank you for colleagues and for friendship, for giving us companions along this calling so we remember we are not alone. Amen.
Deep breaths dear pastor, dear deacon, dear chaplain. And remember the promise that Your labor in the Lord is not in vain. Don’t be afraid. But even if you are, even just a little bit – you are not alone. God is with you.
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