Prayer for December 27, 2021

Prayer for December 27, 2021: Please pray with me. God of those who are tired, you know what we need. Life is a tiring journey, or it can be. It is tiring when we look around and notice. It’s tiring when injustice never seems to end. But it is only so very tiring when we are not looking at the blessings that surround us and go through us. Forgive us when we try to take on more responsibility for the world than we were created to take on. We aren’t the saviors of the world. We merely work for the Savior. We proclaim the Savior’s message. We invite people to this new way of being. What they do with that is up to them. We cannot control the response. So why are we so tired when we can’t determine the outcome? We care so very much. But maybe we are trying to put ourselves in you place. Maybe we think our stress will make a difference. But it is only you that make the difference. And while it is distressing and sad when people ignore or reject a change of heart and systems, it does us well to remember that we can’t change anyone else. We can only invite them to a new way, and to new systems. Relieve us of the burden we put on our shoulders, a burden that does not belong there. A burden that is not ours to carry. Free us from these things so that we many carry the burdens that you call us to. A joy filled burden to be present with those in their pain and suffering, in their poverty and homelessness, in their being cast out and being on the outskirts, in their voicelessness and in their being silenced, in their foreignness and rejection for their faith. Because it is in these that we will see you more clearly and our hearts will be touched. We will more fully know your presence. Amen.

Call to Action: Stop. Just stop what you are doing. And ask this one question – What am I called to? Don’t answer the question. Just ask it. And sit with the silence, without an answer. Just sit and listen. And when you think you have listened long enough – keep listening. Listen to God’s answer is from God’s favored ones – the outcasts, the poor, the foreigners, those who mourn, those who are peacemakers, those who thirst and hunger for righteousness. Listen with out a response. Just listen.