God has a good memory

Jeanne Jugan has written, “Go and find -Jesus when your patience and strength give out and you feel alone and helpless. He is waiting for you. Say to him, ‘-Jesus, you know exactly what is going on. You are all I have, and you know all. Come to my help.’ And then go and don’t worry about how you are going to manage. That you have told God about it is enough. He has a good memory.”

Prayer of Humble Access

This prayer is often used early in the church worship gatherings to help prepare people's hearts for worship in the Anglican and some Catholic traditions:

he 1552 revision (in the modernised spelling of the 1662 Prayer Book) reads as follows:

We do not presume to come to this thy Table, O merciful Lord, trusting in our own righteousness, but in thy manifold and great mercies. We are not worthy so much as to gather up the crumbs under thy Table. But thou art the same Lord, whose property is always to have mercy: Grant us therefore, gracious Lord, so to eat the flesh of thy dear Son Jesus Christ, and to drink his blood, that our sinful bodies may be made clean by his body, and our souls washed through his most precious blood, and that we may evermore dwell in him, and he in us. Amen.

Prayer for Father's Day...

Reflecting on this prayer from common prayer.net today:

Lord, wherever there is mercy, justice, freedom, and kindness, we know your good news is echoing in human history. Give us ears to recognize the sound of glad feet coming and grant us grace to join you wherever you are moving. Amen.

Commanded to delight?

I was reflecting on this prayer this morning:

"Shine your light on our darkness, Lord : and teach us the duty of delight."

Psalm 37:4English Standard Version (ESV)

4 Delight yourself in the Lord,
    and he will give you the desires of your heart.

When we gather as a church...

I read this prayer today and thought about how powerful it is when we make the time to meet together as a church - especially on Sunday mornings.  With the tragedy in Orlando last week we were able to pray just hours after the horrible events happened asking for God to empower His people in Orlando to love on the victims and their families.  God moves when we meet!

Ignatius of Antioch said, “Take heed, then, to come together often to give thanks to God, and show his praise. For when you come frequently together in the same place, the powers of Satan are destroyed, and his fiery darts of sin fall back, worthless. For your unity and harmonious faith prove his destruction, and the torment of his assistants.

Taking note...

I have been thinking about this statement made by the religious establishment in the first century toward followers of Christ as recorded in Acts 4:

13 When they saw the courage of Peter and John and realized that they were unschooled, ordinary men, they were astonished and they took note that these men had been with Jesus.

Later these guys would celebrate the fact that were given the 'privilege' of suffering for the sake of Jesus' name (Acts 5):
41 The apostles left the Sanhedrin, rejoicing because they had been counted worthy of suffering disgrace for the Name.

Makes me ponder my own life in Christ.  Can people tell I've been with Jesus?  Do I consider suffering something to rejoice over?  

Bless us with discomfort...

God, give us discomfort at easy answers, half-truths, and superficial relationships, so that instead we may live deep within our hearts. Grant us anger at injustice, oppression, and exploitation of -people, so that we may wish for justice, freedom, and peace. Bless us with enough foolishness to believe that we can make a difference in this world, so that we can do what others claim cannot be done. Amen.

Prayer for the day...

Grow us slowly, persistently, and deeply, Lord, to be -people who watch without distraction, listen without interruption, and stay put without inclination to flee. 

Amen.