Pastoral Prayer – January 22
Good and gracious God we often come to you asking for your blessing on that which we have already claimed for ourselves and yet, more often than not, you oblige our demands. We continue to come, Lord, intent on wrestling with You, O Lord, desirous of even more. We come asking, pleading, and fighting for that which You have already promised us.
Our bravado masks our insecurities as we approach You expecting easy answers to profound problems. We find that these answers are more often than not found along the way. We also find that sometimes we must grapple with the difficulties of life if we are to find that answer we so desperately seek. We must meet life head on and often we must wrestle with our past. We must fight our demons, both real and conjured in the deep recesses of our imagination. We come, today, desiring a new path one defined less by fight and more by faith. Bring us home Lord from our exile. We are tired and we have found no comfortable place to lay our head.
Awaken us lord from our sleep and let us know that Your blessing is our blessing, now and always. Awaken us from the rattled experience of our nightmare that has shaken us to our core. Let us hear the kind words of a father to a child, “It’s just a dream, everything will be alright.” Let us rest easy if only for a moment and let us be transformed in this realization of Your continued presence with us.
Let the dreams that come to us while we sleep; those dreams that have made fitful our periods of rested slumber; those dreams that have left us ill at ease; let them all be transformed by you to a dream that reminds us that it is, indeed, well with our soul.
O Lord, You have led us out of the darkness and are ready to bring us to a time when a new dawn breaks in in our lives.
May we walk away from this moment ready to encounter even our sworn enemy knowing that you have brought us to this place not for battle; not for revenge; but for reconciliation with You, O Lord and wit all creation. Move us Lord from a place of burden to a place where that burden is relieved. May our dreams borne in darkness be transformed to the dreams You have for us when the morning comes and a new day dawns.
We have been touched by every encounter with You, O Lord, and we have been changed. Let us, now, wake from our grogginess ready to claim Your dream for us.
In Christ’s Name, Amen.
