Prayer & Praise
We give you thanks for the babe born in violence.
We give you thanks for the miracle of Bethlehem, born into the Jerusalem heritage.
We do not understand why the innocents must be slaughtered; we know that your kingdom comes in violence and travail.
Our time would be a good time for your kingdom to come, because we have had enough of violence and travail.
So we wait with eager longing, and with enormous fear, because your promises do not coincide with our favorite injustices.
We pray for the coming of your kingdom on earth as it is around your heavenly throne.
We are people grown weary of waiting.
We dwell in the midst of cynical people, and we have settled for what we can control.
We do know that you hold initiative for our lives, that your love planned our salvation before we saw the light of day.
And so we wait for your coming, in your vulnerable baby in whom all things are made new.
Amen.
Walter Brueggemann. Awed to Heaven, Rooted in Earth: The Prayers of Walter Brueggemann (p. 149). Kindle Edition.
Almighty Heavenly Son of God, Lord Jesus,
Come soon PLEASE…. Eradicate all evil, both in this world and in the spirit world. There is absolutely no absolute right to be agreed upon by those self-righteous derelicts which deny Your Holiness and proclaim their own majesty.
There is no wonder that we can not agree with each other when we refuse to even agree with You. We humans have lost our own value because we desecrated the basic meaning of the purpose of the existence of life as a whole; concentrating on the individual aspect as if that were the true purpose of life.
We have fallen short of wanting to live for the reason to worship You and instead we want ourselves to be worshiped. We have become a disgusting race and are living very close to being as those were in the days of Noah.
Thank You for the offer of the cleansing grace of mercy which we do not come close to be deserving of. But how long oh Lord will You allow our ignorance until You cleanse us with Your Righteous Justice?
Glory will be that day.
Praying for and with all families in the Body of Christ who have lost immediate family members this last year. Mine included.
-mike