A Concord Pastor Comments: Monday Morning Offering: Prayer for Labor Day 2105

Morning Coffee by George Mendoza

(A few days ago I posted several prayers for Labor Day to make them available for others in parish ministry who might want to use them on the holiday. Here's one of those prayers, a morning offering, and several others are available here.)

Good morning, good God!

This Labor Day, Lord,
I'm grateful for the world you created
and that I, too, am the work of your hands:
you formed my inmost being,
you knit me in my mother's womb...*

How can it be that you took the time,
before time was,
to imagine my being,
to consider even for a moment
that I would exist:
to conceive of me
before I was conceived?

And then from the love of two,
you made, you fashioned me in your own image and in theirs
and gave me a soul you'd given no other
and breathed in me
the spirit, the breath of your own life...

How great are your works, O Lord,
and how grateful am I
that this life of mine
is truly the work of your hands...

Who am I that you should be mindful of me,
care for me and love me?
Yet you have crowned me with glory and honor:
your love, my crown,
your mercy, my glory,
your grace, my honor...

Without you, Lord, I am nothing;
without you,
I am not...

You created me, Lord,
and now I,
the work of your hands,
offer you
the work of my hands,
knowing that all that I have
was first your gift to me...

Every good thought of mine,
every imagined word, every work I dream,
every gift I offer
is the work of your Spirit within me -
and yet you are pleased
when I lift up to you a gift
that was always yours to begin with...

On this Labor Day, Lord, I offer my work
and pray you'll accept it and know
that I'm humbled that my hands share in your work
and your hands share in mine...

And I pray for those who have no work
and for those whose work's too much to bear:
lift up the jobless, Lord and lighten the load of the weary...

Make me mindful, Lord,
of the ways you move in my life
through the work of all whose paths cross mine...

Good God of Monday mornings
and of every labored day,
I praise you for the work you began in me
and pray you bring it to fulfillment...

Amen.

*Psalm 139