Prayer by Sarah Bessey

 

Sarah Bessey 

Poster based in Canada

  · utSmponsoc14rhead  ·

God, would You guide us towards the practice of goodness? Keep us connected and engaged, wise as serpents and innocent as doves even as we co-create justice and peace in this tired beloved tragedy of a world. Would you help us to make room to practice and notice the things that bring us joy, keep us open, heal us, and give us rest. I pray for my friends who are in this space with me: may we each practice rest and joy like the resistance depends on our well-being in body and soul.

We will not despise the days of small things, God. We know You are hiding in plain sight in our right-now lives. Give us a sense of purpose when we phone bank, when we protest, when we vote, when we show up to city council meetings, when we clean washrooms and feed people and prayer-walk our neighbourhoods. Give us bravery for the work of hard conversations with people who have disappointed us. Give us strength to speak truth in love to power.

May we be the ones who do not settle for calling out but be the ones who dare to call others ‘in’ - in to mercy, in to goodness, in to justice, in to repentance, in to hope. Keep room in our hearts for us to be surprised.

Give us courage, Holy One. Courage to engage, courage to stay angry, courage to not turn away to numbness or distraction, courage to love, and the courage to show up for our own lives and for our own moment in history.

We pray for our enemies, Jesus. This is the hardest of hard things you have asked for us to do. But we do: we pray for them. Open their eyes, their hearts. Call the wicked into repentance. Make the story of Zaccheus real to us in some small way: so that we can see the wicked ones turn towards you and then make retribution and reparations for their sin. And when we lack faith for this - I lack faith for this right now, Jesus - help our unbelief.

Good morning, God. When we rise, we rise in your love. When we rest, we rest in your love.

Amen.


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