We need another Pentecost,
Send the fire!
(from a song written by William Booth, founder (with his wife) of The Salvation Army; photo by music4life via pixabay.com)
A daily prayer blog by Bob Hostetler, the author of The Red Letter Prayer Life and the 31 Ways to Pray for Your Kids iPhone and iPad app. Just one prayer each day. Seldom more. Seldom very long. Sometimes personal. Sometimes original. Always sincere.
O God, early in the morning I cry to you.Help me to prayAnd to concentrate my thoughts on you:I cannot do this alone.In me there is darkness,But with you there is light;I am lonely, but you do not leave me;I am feeble in heart, but with you there is help;I am restless, but with you there is peace.In me there is bitterness, but with you there is patience;I do not understand your ways,But you know the way for me…Restore me to liberty,And enable me to live nowThat I may answer before you and before me.Lord, whatever this day may bring,Your name be praised.
(a prayer of Deitrich Bonhoeffer)
Disturb us, Lord,when we are too well pleased with ourselves,when our dreams have come truebecause we have dreamed too little,when we arrived safelybecause we sailed too close to the shore.Disturb us, Lord,when with the abundance of things we possesswe have lost our thirst for the waters of life;having fallen in love with life,we have ceased to dream of eternity,and in our efforts to build a new earth,we have allowed our visionof the new Heaven to dim.Disturb us, Lord,to dare more boldly,to venture on wider seaswhere storms will show your mastery;where losing sight of land,we shall find the stars.We ask You to push backthe horizons of our hopes;and to push into the futurein strength, courage, hope, and love.(attributed to Sir Francis Drake; photo by ross_savchyn via unsplash.com)
Am I a stone, and not a sheep,
That I can stand, O Christ, beneath Thy cross,
To number drop by drop Thy blood's slow loss,
And yet not weep?
Not so those women loved
Who with exceeding grief lamented Thee;
Not so fallen Peter weeping bitterly;
Not so the thief was moved;
Not so the Sun and Moon
Which hid their faces in a starless sky,
A horror of great darkness at broad noon--
I, only I.
Yet give not o'er,
But seek Thy sheep, true Shepherd of the flock;
Greater than Moses, turn and look once more
And smite a rock.
(by Christina Rossetti)