Hearts and Hands Together

Gracious and loving God, we pray this day that we may put service to You and Your people first and foremost in our lives. Please present us with ways that we specifically may help those most in need. Please show us the hungry, the hurt, the lonely, that we may ease their suffering and give them new strength and hope. Please allow us to shower those who mourn with comfort to ease their grief. Please help us offer forgiveness and mercy when we feel incapable of doing so on our own that we may ease another's anguish over having made a mistake that cannot be corrected any other way. Please bless those who we may not encounter directly, but who are Your children, deserving of all that You have to offer. Our hearts and hands are Your most important instruments in our world. Please, let us never take these tools, and what they can accomplish, for granted. Amen.

Grace

Grace-Full God, thank You that I felt Your spirit holding my hand, urging me to wait just a few more seconds before entering that intersection. Your attention to such loving detail in Your world means that I am safe, the people in several other cars are safe and we all will live another day in Your creation.

Grace-Full God, thank you for reminding me that my friend's birthday is coming up at the end of the month and that she loves to be remembered on her special day, if only with a card. You remember each of us in ways we often fail to acknowledge. It feels quite wonderful to be able to pass that on to someone You helped me find.

Grace-Full God, thank You for taking care of all of us, even when we aren't aware that it is You guiding us, encouraging us, making space for us to be as You would have us be. Amen.

A Steady Pace

God Who Journey's With Us, there are so many ways that we get from one place to another in any given day. Mostly, we choose whatever is fastest because we believe we have so little time to spend on travel. Planes, trains and automobiles are our favorites, trusted methods that catapult us forward, always forward, so we don't miss our chance to be bigger, better, stronger than all our competition, whoever they may be.

Walking seems like a lost art, doesn't it? A slower pace, a cadence that requites rhythm, patience and attention to the simple act of putting one foot in front of the other. We don't even like parking too far away from shopping mall entrances and grocery store doors for fear it will take time away from the task at hand.

But walking with You is our charge, we who are Your elect, Your chosen, Your people. By not being willing to use our bodies to walk in Your world are we missing those moments in which we can learn to walk with You more intimately? Amen.