Good and gracious God, We want a deeper faith. We want to know you more fully, but we are also sometimes worried to ask too many questions, to have it seem too much like we are uncertain. May we learn to hold on to a love that is so unquenchable it is willing to ask … Continue reading Asking Difficult Questions [A Prayer]
Good and gracious God, Sometimes to be the people we feel called to be we must do things which can feel impossible. Most of us have doubts and questions and negative thoughts about ourselves at times. Sometimes it seems humanity is just wired that way. Pride and feeling important can feel like a needed counterbalance … Continue reading Letting Go of Self-importance [A Prayer]
Good and gracious God, Rescue us from our self-importance. Pull us from the depths of our short-sighted selfishness. Remind us of the interconnectedness of life. Convict us with the reality that a threat to justice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. Inspire us toward lives lived out for others -- lives that persistently shout … Continue reading Bringing Justice [A Prayer]
Good and gracious God, In a world where you can love your family and love your car, it can be difficult to truly understand the love we are called to practice. With so many ideas and understandings of love we provide ourselves with a buffet of choices for how to treat our neighbor and still … Continue reading Loving Others [A Prayer]
Good and gracious God, Sometimes we get so caught up in planning the future and remembering the past that we miss opportunities in the here and now. Rather than focusing on the realities of now, we concentrate on skewed memories of what was or hopeful projections of what could be. Call us to each moment. … Continue reading Living in the Moment [A Prayer]
Good and gracious God, I suppose I'm one of those 'idiots' who can find you in a sunset. I see you in the swooping play of seagulls and in the quiet stillness of deep waters. I have heard a silent hymn sung by the light of the Milky Way and I have heard the choral … Continue reading Finding God in the Sunset [A Prayer]
God of all nations and peoples, We come before you rejoicing in many languages. We give thanks for the movement of your Spirit. And even as we do, we confess that sometimes we fear the Spirit and its proclivity for being unruly, unexpected, unconventional and down-right unconcerned with what we want or how things have … Continue reading Pentecost [A Prayer]
Good and gracious God, Far too frequently we find ourselves taking on the moniker of Christian but not following through with the behavior which should accompany that name. We gossip about our neighbor. We dispense judgements against those who are different from us. We leap to negative conclusions about others when their behavior doesn't match … Continue reading Being a Follower [A Prayer]
Good and gracious God, In a world where you can both LOVE your family and LOVE Reese's Peanut Butter Cup ice cream, it can be difficult to truly understand the love you call us to practice. With so many ideas and understandings of love we provide ourselves with a buffet of choices for how to … Continue reading Loving Abundantly [A Prayer]
Good and gracious God, We want a deeper faith. We want to know you more fully, but we are also sometimes worried to ask too many questions, to have it seem too much like we are uncertain. Let us hold up Thomas as an example, of a love that is so unquenchable it is willing … Continue reading Be Like Thomas [A Prayer of Questioning]
Rev. Mark Sandlin 