Prayers

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That you may be children of you Father who is in heaven: for he makes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. Matthew 5 vs.45.

Lord, I’m holding you to that promise, that you will send rain in your mercy.

Thank you for the inner sense of a promise that you will shortly send 2 inches of rain on our community, and thank you for pardoning our ongoing iniquity, but I need not remind you that 4 to 8 inches appears necessary for the month.

The work that you alone have done this year is fantastic, and greatly appreciated [though we often appear so thankless], yet our hearts despair of expectation as we watch the warm, and waterless days go by. Fears rise unexpectedly within, and those who know so little of you question your glory.

For it is your glory, Lord. Only you can cause the sun to shine and the rain to come. Only you can cause the rivers to flow abundantly and heal the land in despair. Only you can cause the waters beneath the earth to rise and the wells to fill.

And we, who are so thankless, will drink to our fill, and become drunk in our excess, and commit all manner of evil in the days of your providence. What manner of men we are! Little wonder your Spirit says of mankind, and all that dwells on the earth, “All flesh is grass, and will be burned in everlasting flames.” O that we might know to be pure and grateful in your sight!

But, Lord, there are those who perish without ever knowing your grace. [They receive it, but, failing to recognize the source, they do not know it.] These, in their despair take their own lives, cursing, and blaspheming you, and your holy name. Grant them both the spirit and the time to change.

For this, too, is your glory, Lord. Only you can number the days of a man, and only you can add to the length of his days, and whether they are of misery, or thankfulness for all that you have done. Who among us can say, “God fulfilled the number of my days, but I overcame him and added days upon days,” or, “God gave me length of days, but I, in my own strength have cut them short?” Does a man know the number of his days? But you know them Lord, and can say to a man in the fullness of time, “Today you shall die,” or, though you have numbered his days, “I shall give you life unexpectedly, for my grace is sufficient for you.”

All life is in your hands, as is the rain: so we come to you, and say, remember your mercy, Lord; and your promise to give rain to the just, and the unjust, that there may be meat and bread for our tables. May your abundance turn our evil hearts to you and our needy hands raised, as little children, with great expectancy of your grace and love.

We have so much we need to ask of you who, like The Good Father, provide through faith in the name of Jesus Christ, your dear Son who died that we might live. Amen.

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