So have you been praying faithfully? And has God been answering all your prayers speedily? Oh - I thought not. Usually, I preach the scriptures. Tonight, I would like to pray them - with you. So I'm gonna ask you, I'm gonna invite you into my prayer, which will become our prayer.
It might help you to close your eyes, maybe it won't. I don't know. It depends on what works for you. Just sit back and be with me in prayer.
Lord, I've been wondering, what do you do with all the prayers I say? All the prayers I say for myself, all the prayers I pray for others, all the prayers I pray for the world. What do you do with all those prayers, Lord?
And not just my prayers. What do you do with all the prayers of all your people? So many people are praying and praying all the time. Like steam from millions of cups of coffee and tea and hot chocolate: our prayers rise up to you each day… an offering of incense: a sweet aroma, ground from our beings, steeped in our sorrow, sweetened by our joy.
Lord, what do you do with the prayers, we pray. I know you hear our prayers - every single one of them. And I believe you're pleased when we pray, that you're pleased just to hear from us. No matter what we pray or say, or ask or plead, or beg for. I believe you listen carefully, even when we don't know what to say - or what we're saying. Even our silence rises like a sweet fragrance, whether the cups of our hearts are empty or full.
What do you do, Lord, with all the prayers, we pray? We offer you prayers of petition, thanksgiving, contrition, praise, rosaries, chaplets, novenas, masses, stations of the cross…
We offer you our dreams and schemes for you to bless with success. We offer you our hopes, and we try to cope when you take so long, too long, it often seems, too long to answer when we call on you in our need. We offer you all work, or we pray to find some work to do. We offer you our weaknesses and we beg you for strength. We offer you our hearts for healing, our hurts for soothing, our bodies for mending, our problems for fixing, our confusion for resolving, our relationships for repairing.
What do you do with all those prayers, Lord? Perhaps you store them up. Of course you do. That's what you do. You store them up, you keep all our prayers in the infinite depths of your heart, wherein beats the heart of everyone ever born. All of us here, now. And the prayers of all the hearts who have passed away and gone home to you. And even the prayers of those whose hearts have yet begun to beat. In your heart, Lord, our every prayer is heard, stored, treasured, measured - all for eternal keeping: like love letters tied up with ribbons, or Valentine's handmade and sent from children. You store up the prayers, we offer you, even the many prayers we've forgotten, prayers that once seemed so urgent. Every one of our prayers without a single exception, Lord, echoes in your heart forever.
So we come once again, Lord, to offer you our prayers tonight. We offer you our troubles and pray for your peace.
We offer you our fears and pray for your strength.
We offer you our silence - and trust you hear the words we cannot say.
We offer you the work of the week ahead, and pray you help and bless all those who has paths will cross our own.
We offer you all our needs and wants, fully aware, Lord, that already we have so much more than we need.
We offer you our desire for peace and unity around the world, in our nation, in our communities, in our families.
We offer you our weak and ailing selves and pray for healing in mind and body.
We offer you our prayers for others (family, friends, loved ones) and we offer our prayer for those who have asked us to pray for them.
But how long, O Lord? How long until you answer our prayers?
Some of us, many of us, most of us, well - all of us have been praying and waiting for a very long time. And longing and waiting… and looking and waiting… and hoping and waiting… and waiting and praying again and again and again. So many, Lord, have been so faithful in such prayer for so long.
We've been tempted to give up, but we haven't. We've wondered if it's all in vain, but we haven't despaired. Even when the answers seem never to come, we wait and pray… And pray and wait… And wait and pray some more… We cry for help. We wonder if you're listening. We look for your strong arm and wonder when you'll intervene. Why you haven't, or if you ever will. Sometimes we look around and see only misery - so long have we lived with our worries, needs, and fears.
For some of us, Lord, from the waters of some spring deep within our souls come tears without end that blur our vision and threaten to blind us to your presence, your care, to your strong arm reaching out to support us and embrace us in our pain.
So we pray, "Where are you, Lord? How long, O Lord?” We wonder if you may have forgotten us - and our prayers…
But still, we hope and we pray that you will intervene and heal us, and mend us, and resolve our problems and reconcile all the brokenness in our lives.
We believe you're everywhere, Lord. We believe you're especially close to those who suffer…
And so we pray:
• Show yourself to us. Wipe away our tears and help us see how closely you walk right by our side.
• Find a way, Lord, to help us trust more deeply, know more fully, believe more freely that you DO hear our prayers - every one, and that you take to heart all we say, and all we cannot say. All we want to tell you, and all we cannot bear to tell ourselves.
• We know you've not forgotten any one of us, that you know us each by name, that you've known us each by name since before we came to be in our mothers’ wombs. You know our comings and our goings, our joys and our sorrows, our dreams and our despair - and you never leave our side.
• Refresh our memory, Lord, about the times when we've known, when we've felt, when we knew without a doubt that you had our back, that you were right by our side, that you heard and answered our prayers. And in remembering how you have always been there, help us remember that you've never left us, that our names and our prayers are written on your heart.
• Open our hearts, Lord, to hear you call us by name and help us know and trust again: that we are loved, not forgotten; remembered, always cherished; inscribed, forever, on your heart.
• We know your desire, our peace. You gave your life for us that we might have life and joy - and have it to the full.
• We know that you're strong arm can do all things. Sometimes you intervene - and make all things well. Sometimes you hold back your arm - and give us the strength to make the changes we need to make to help make all things well. Sometimes your arm reaches out to our pain, not to take it away, but to support us, to help us live through our troubles - and learn from them. And sometimes your arm offers us the shoulder we need to lean on, and to cry on: a place where we find respite and refreshment.
• Lord, help us feel the slightest movement of your hand in our lives. If you but touch us with your fingertip, help us sense it. Help us know it. Help us rejoice in your touch and your presence. Help us see that patience provides a depth of healing, no instant cure can provide. Help us lean on the shoulder of your compassion and consolation and find good rest by your side.
• Open our eyes and hearts to the times we may have missed when your strong arm has lifted us up, defended us in danger, supported us in our efforts, wiped away our tears, shown us the path to walk: from our sorrow to joy, from our emptiness to fullness, from our troubles to peace Lead us to a time and place of prayer, Lord.
• In the stillness, speak to our hearts, call us by our name. Refresh our faith and trust in you. Help us find in your own suffering, Lord, the strength we need: to lift our eyes to your face, to speak the prayers of our hearts, to open the doors of our souls and invite you in, to mend and heal whatever our pain might be.
• Show us your love and help us to see how you are with us day by day, a day at a time, an hour at a time, that you'll never forget or abandon us. We entrust ourselves to your heart, Lord, because it's in your heart alone that our restless hearts will find the peace they seek, the peace they pray for.
• And, Lord, help us know and help us accept that you answer all our prayers but: in your time, not in ours, in your ways, not our own… in your time, Lord, not ours, in your ways, not our own.
• Help us, Lord, to know, and help us to accept that you will give us, you will grant us, not everything we want, but everything we need to find our peace in you.
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