Harmony Grove United Methodist Church

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The Pastor's Corner...

PRAYER

I was once asked to provide the "evening prayer" for the Harrison Shaw Preaching Mission at Trinity UMC. When delivering a prayer at a large gathering, I like to write it out ahead of time. This does not diminish the prayer, rather it forces the one praying to carefully select every word so that the people listening may be blessed while God is really the one we are addressing. To some extent, any public prayer is "for" the people and "to" God. I hope this prayer will become your prayer and bless you as well. Gracious God, Father/creator, owner, author of all that is···even and especially this day, we come before you as haughty, guilty, rebellious offspring who have thumbed our nose at you in so many ways. Forgive us for not hearing, not trusting, not doing, not loving, not caring, not seeing, not feeding, not clothing, not housing, not looking for our neighbor, not knowing their name or phone number. We know that You call us from within our own souls, from pulpits, from the pages of the newspaper, and the segments of the television news magazines, from the stores in our malls and the shops downtown, and from the schools and the colleges of our nation. Why is our attention span so short···our vision so limited? Show us your ways, teach us your paths, and lead us in your ways of truth. (Psalm 25) You are the source, the definition of mercy and grace and we praise you with joy···like a butterfly dancing over the infinite field of flowers, like a cloud racing above all of creation lifted and carried by your spirit wind, like the bubbling, singing water of a mountain stream seeking to return to it's source···we know deep down inside of us that you are what we seek, but you told us to look for You next door. The old ones reminded us that the widows and fatherless have no language but a cry (Exodus 22:23)). We know You are not indifferent to their plea for justice. We know that in Your courts their cries are being heard, that Your lawyers are there to plead, judge and avenge the oppressed, those persons we call so indifferently "marginalized". We have heard Your Word read to us as a story···a parable told by your son Jesus, (Luke 10: 25-27) Don't let us be so religious that we pass by those who have fallen in the ditch, don't let us be so afraid we can't ever tell it's You standing on our steps saying, "I don't know what to do···help me." Don't let us be so afraid of losing what we think is ours that we can't give a bit of it to the one who asks for our help or even share a room in our house. Don't let us become so convinced that there isn't enough to go around that we fail to share what we have, forgetting that You are out Father, You, the King, the Author of it all. We know that actually, you are asking us to be the ones who bring your plenty, your mercy, your grace, your food, your housing, your medicine, your care, your love··· to the ones who are not feeling Your presence. And we so often do forget that You are the source of all this is···we are Your children and You love us, we won't run out, because You won't run out. Help us Father not to be those who only hear his story, those who watch from the top of the ditch like we were watching just another horrible story on TV. Rather, break into our houses, our minds, our hearts, and make us be your generous children. We ask it in the name of Jesus Christ who is Your Son and our Lord. Amen.
In Christ,
Patrick Welch
Pastor