Prayers for the Permanent Collection

All Things New Teach us the patience to heal Jesus,  We love disposable things. Plastic containers and bags  filling oceans and landfills. We tend to replace broken things, not repair them. Take a sip and discard; microwave, eat, and discard. Something broken? No problem! Go to Amazon, click, click, click, overnight delivery and boom! Broken thing replaced, not repaired. The little luxuries that w...

Tenebrae  Lament of the Wounded How long, oh Lord, will I walk around wounded? How long will I don gauze as my garment? How long will my plea go unanswered? How long will your face turn away? My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? My soul is crying in anguish, battered by emotional pain  it knows not how to name. My bones ache from exhaustion,  my muscles are knotted in tension shaking and sobb...

Sovereignty Blown by the Wind The wind blows where it pleases, and you hear its sound, but you don’t know where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit. John 3:8 Holy Spirit,  As we enter this place, free us to surrender to the power of your Wind. We give up control of worries that keep us sleepless and burdens that make us hunch. We give up our ideas of what...

The Shepherd The Shepherd’s Touch Good Shepherd,  I’ve been too mad at you to let you touch me, throwing punches in the air, fighting the wind to keep you away. But the truth is I. AM. LOST. I’ve been wandering in your silence’s wilderness, longing for the Shepherd to find me. My body and soul are fainting, yearning for you, for the sound of your voice, for the warmth of your arms, for the touch o...

Job’s answer God’s Questions I had heard reports about you, but now my eyes have seen you. Therefore, I reject my words and am sorry for them; I am dust and ashes.  Job 42:5-6 Pure Wisdom, We are suffering, crushed by the weight of life, burdened by a world torn apart, tired of the thorns and the thistles.  Our bodies are covered  in boils of infirmity and injustice. Our skin itches with lonelines...

Humility and Generosity  No one has greater love than this: to lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. I do not call you servants anymore, because a servant does not know what his master is doing. I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything I have heard from my Father.  John 15:13-15 Teach us to trust in order to love  God,  We...

Chasing My Dreams Again The little children were brought to Jesus for him to place his hands on them and pray, but the disciples rebuked them. Jesus said, “Leave the little children alone, and don’t try to keep them from coming to me, because the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.” Matthew 19:13-14 Bless the “little saints” Jesus, To you who love children more than we ever could, we comme...

Big Bang / Kingdom of God Uncontainable and Uncontrollable Now to him who is able to do above and beyond all that we ask or think according to the power that works in us - to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen.  Ephesians 3:20-21   God, You who no temple contains and fills the whole earth. You who reclines in heaven and rests his feet on earth....

Beauty Intended The Rhythms of Beauty Let us, then, make every effort to enter that rest so that no one will fall into the same pattern of disobedience.  Hebrews 4:11 Creator and Beauty,  On day one  you turned on the lights  in a world that was dark,  filled with empty space, in timeless disarray,  but pregnant with promise for your Spirit was hovering. On day two you made a home for the sky,  dw...

Ascension, O Death Where is Your Sting Dry bones and rainbows “The hand of the Lord was on me, and he brought me out by his Spirit and set me down in the middle of the valley; it was full of bones. He led me all around them. There were a great many of them on the surface of the valley, and they were very, very dry. Then he said to me, ‘Son of man, can these bones live?’ I replied, ‘Lord God only y...

Abolitionists  Let My People Go! “ I have observed the misery of my people in Egypt, and have heard them crying out because of their oppressors. I know about their sufferings and I have come down to rescue them from the power of the Egyptians and to bring them from that land to a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey…” (Exodus 3:7-8) “The Lord, the God of the Hebrews, has sent...

The Return of the Prodigal [...] So he got up and went to his father. But while the son was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion. He ran, threw his arms around his neck, and kissed him. Luke 15:20 The Clarity of the Father’s Embrace Father, Sorry it took me so long… So long to see your heart, so long to see my pride, so long to hear you calling,  so long to hear...

Holy Saturday Inside the tomb where your dead body laid there was silence and stench,  breathless body, heavy air. We can handle the stench, even wrestle with the pain. But who can take the silence? The One who spoke plants alive and the stars to shine doesn’t utter a word! Are you there? … The One who spoke from eternity now sits silent in infinity while we endure the silence born in infinite Lig...

Good Friday/Whipped Christ Will I Do the Same? “He grew up before him like a young plant  and like a root out of dry ground.  He didn’t have an impressive form  or majesty that we should look at him,  no appearance that we should desire him.  He was despised and rejected by men,  a man of suffering who knew what sickness was.  He was like someone people turn away from;  he was despised and we didn...

Four Chapters Our Downtown Familia in the Four Chapters God,  Creator of the Universe and Giver of life,  whose word creates and whose breath animates.  You decorated heaven with billions of stars, filled the ocean with playful creatures  and the earth with millions of flowers of shapes and colors galore  for your pleasure and ours.  How creative and fun you are! You planted us in the garden  to b...

Shine Like Scars in the Sky Dazzling Scars Lord, We can’t breathe. We are wounded. Crushing pain  stifles our breath. How will you ever make beauty out of these scars, where pain left its mark? Oh, but healing leaves a mark too!  New tissue covers our wounds; a different shade makes a sign… A sign that resurrection awaits that Jesus also wears scars, where nails once attempted to crush him. But th...

St. John’s Bible   Trembling at His Word This is what the Lord says,  Heaven is my throne, and earth is my footstool. Where could you possibly build a house for me? And where could my resting place be? My hand made all these things, and so they all came into being. This is the Lord’s declaration. I will look favorably on this kind of person: one who is humble, submissive in spirit, and trembles at...

Broken Together Before You Lord,  We are anxious. What will we eat, wear, and keep? Will we marry or will we not?  And if we will, who would it be? Our minds, restless with worry, wonder if the hustle is worth it,  if the toil of each day matters, if the world will ever heal. Our hearts are bleeding,  wounded with unfulfilled desires, sore with the sorrow of invisibility, eaten alive by loneliness...