Gracious, living and everlasting Lord,
This world is desperate for your healing. We are desperate for your healing, for your light, for your mercy. Let us not be satisfied with the mercy we’ve been granted in you yet tightfisted in flowing that mercy to others. Let us not be content to be served, yet slow and grudging in sacrificial service to those around us. Let us not be stingy with grace and forgiveness for others, when you have been so radically generous with us.
We who have been forgiven much can find ourselves sitting around expecting much from others. Move us from that place where we love to judge and are possessed only by a hard hearted desire for justice. Move us to that place where we love mercy and possess a desire to see people live in the new life found in you. Hold to your promises and move us back and replant our feet under your cloak of righteousness and give us a new and merciful heart. A heart that is poor in spirit that it might be filled with your spirit, a heart that is meek that it might receive your kingdom, a heart that hungers for righteousness.
Shine your face upon us, and search our hearts to reveal those we hide our faces from. When we are turned inward with our own anxieties and fears, turn us to you in prayer, with every petition, and with thanksgiving that we might be made bearers of your light in this world. Bearers of your mercy, of your grace, of your forgiveness. Bearers of the truth that you are a stronghold in times of trouble, a stronghold for the weary. That you do not forget the cries of the afflicted, nor forsake those who seek you. Renew our hearts that we might trust in your steadfast love, that our hearts might rejoice in your salvation, and our souls sing, for you have dealt bountifully with us in your Son. It is in his name we pray.
Amen.