Prayer for the Day - April 2015

[MajestyJo]

Let us pray:

Lord, inspire me always
to have genuine care and concern
for others,
and may people be as generous to me
as I am to them.
Amen.

[MajestyJo]

One day, Benjamin Franklin gave someone
a list of practical suggestions about
getting along with others. This is what
he wrote:

“The best thing to give your enemy
is forgiveness;
- to an opponent, tolerance;
- to a friend, your ear;
- to your child, good example;
- to your father, reverence;
- to your mother, conduct that will make
her proud of you;
- to yourself, respect;
- to all people, love.”

Let us pray:

Lord, give me patience and tolerance
with everyone.
Lord, show me
how to be kind and generous
to everyone.
Lord, help me
to live positively and cheerfully
for everyone.
Amen.

[MajestyJo]

Albert Einstein was born in Germany in
1879. He is now acknowledged as one
of the world’s greatest scientists. Yet,
when he applied to attend a college in
Munich, he was turned down because
they said that he “showed no promise”.
He worked in different jobs to get the
money he needed to follow his scientific
interests.

Important as knowledge is, without his
sense of imagination and creativity he
would not have been able to make use
of his knowledge to make such advances
in science. It’s interesting that he said:

“Imagination is more important than
knowledge.”

Einstein also said:

“When I see the Cosmos, I can't help but
believe that there is a Divine Hand behind
it all.”

He died on this day in 1955, having said
that “Only a life lived for others is worthwhile.”

Let us pray:
Lord our God,
you give different gifts to each of us
and you are pleased
when we use our gifts well.
Inspire each of us to reach our potential
and use our gifts
for the benefit of others.
Enable us by the power of your Spirit
to grow in faith
and in imagination and creativity,
living a life for others
that is worthwhile.
Amen.

[MajestyJo]

The three main religions in the world -
Judaism, Christianity, and Islam - all believe
in one God. Jews sometimes call
him “Yahweh”, and Muslims call him
“Allah”.

Muslims follow the religion of Islam, and
their holy book is called the Qur’an (Koran).
Muslims believe that it is the message
of God spoken by the Angel Gabriel
to Mohammed, who died in the year
632 AD. The Qu’ran is written in Arabic.

From an early age, Muslims read from
the Qur’an each day. Their holy book is
so important to them that they learn
parts of it by heart, and many learn the
whole of the Qur’an by heart. The prayer
we are going to use is based on the opening
lines of the Qur’an. Members of each
of the three world religions could use this
prayer together:


Let us pray:

In the name of God, who is merciful:
All praise be to God,
who is the Lord of everything.
We serve no-one but you, our God,
and you are the only one
to whom we turn for help.
Keep us away from the path
of those who stray from you.
Guide us instead
on the way we should go
- on the path
of those whom you have blessed.

[MajestyJo]

Let’s pray the shortest psalm in the Bible.
It invites people - not of any single
country but the people of all nations - to
give praise to God:

Let us pray:

Praise the Lord, all you nations.
Speak to him, all people of the earth,
because his love is great
and he is always faithful.
(Psalm 117)

[MajestyJo]

Let’s remind ourselves in silence that we
are in God’s presence…

(pause…)

The word “prophet” means “God’s
spokesman”. It’s not anything to do with
trying to discover what’s going to happen
in the future.

We read of the prophets (God’s spokesmen)
in the Old Testament. One of the
prophets was called Micah. He spoke
very simply about three qualities that are
needed to live a good life:

“To act justly,
to love tenderly,
and to walk humbly with God
(Micah 68)

We make that our prayer today:
That we may act justly,
love tenderly,
and walk humbly with you, our God.

They are easy words to remember, and
they are the kind of words that some
people learn and repeat a few times during
the day, reminding themselves that
God is with them.

[MajestyJo]

Peace Prayer

May the people on this planet be changed.
Changed from hatred to love,
Changed from greed to giving,
Changed from selfishness to selflessness,
Changed from apathy to action,
Changed from jealousy to joy over someone's accomplishments,
Changed from intolerance to acceptance,
Changed from being destructive to being constructive,
Changed from fighting to peace,
Changed from killing to protecting life,
Changed from censorship to freedom,
Changed from ignorance to education,
Changed from fearing our differences to rejoicing our variety.

May we each take it upon ourselves to feed the hungry, cure the sick,
house the homeless, educate the illiterate, love the unloved,
compete to do the right thing instead of winning at any cost,
be heroes that teach our children to
make the world a better place instead of glorifying violence and war,
stand up and speak out against things that are wrong
instead of sitting back and waiting for someone else,
demand honesty from our governments,
demand honesty from ourselves.

May we each take responsibility for our own actions
and realize that by refusing to change ourselves,
we condone all the evils in the world.
If one person changes, they teach others by example,
who in turn change and teach more,
one person becomes as a pebble rolling down a mountain,
picking up more pebbles as it continues,
becoming an avalanche of change.
It can happen, it must happen, it will happen.

To make this prayer work, you have to change yourself.

Copyright 1997 Don Morris.

[MajestyJo]

Today is Saint George’s Day, the patron
saint of England, and we pray for all
English people.

It is also the day on which William Shakespeare
was born in 1564. He died on his
birthday in 1616.

In his play, Richard II, (the second) Shakespeare
has one of his characters say:
“I count myself
in nothing else so happy
as in a soul
remembering my good friends.”
(Richard II,Act 2, Scene 3)

Each of us can think for a moment of a
few individuals who have improved the
quality of our lives, whom we remember
as good friends.
(pause…)

In Shakespeare’s play, King Henry VI, (the
sixth) the king says:
“O Lord, that lends me life,
Lend me a heart replete with thankfulness.”
(‘King Henry the Sixth’, Part 2, Act 1,Scene 1)

Let’s take these ideas and pray:

Lord, as you lend me life,
lend me a heart full of thankfulness,
that I may treasure good friends
and be appreciative
of all who are part of my life.
Inspire me each day
to live positively and cheerfully,
living in such a way
that I express thanks
and encouragement
to others,
so that, together,
we may bring out the best
in each other.
Amen.

[MajestyJo]

Let us pray:

Loving Lord,
we need the power of your Spirit
in our lives
to build on what is good,
and to help change
what needs to be changed.
We pray that we may be faithful
in responding to your call to grow
as the people you have called us to be,
that we may ring out your praises
through the way we live each day.
Amen.

[MajestyJo]

Let us pray:

Lord Jesus,
we remember that you said
that you would be with us,
so we do know in our minds
that you are present.
But there’s a difference
between knowing that you’re present
and growing in the faith
that you are beside us.
We ask for the power of your Spirit
in our lives each day,
so that we may live more fully
in your presence.
Only then will our attitude
and words and actions
better reflect yours. Amen.

[MajestyJo]

Let us pray:

God our Father,
with the gifts you have given to us
we have responsibilities and duties.
Lead us to do our best
and act responsibly.
Give us courage
when we face difficulties.
Inspire us to make our choices wisely,
always remembering
that there are consequences
to what we choose to do.
Amen.

[MajestyJo]

Yesterday, 26th April, in 1994, saw the
start of voting in South Africa’s first elections
to include people of all colours.
“The Rainbow Nation” is the phrase often
used by President Nelson Mandela
about South Africa’s multi-racial society.

We are going to listen to a translation of
some of the words of South Africa’s new
National Anthem. We can make the
words our own prayer for our own nation:

Let us pray:

Bless our nation, Lord,
and let your mercy come among us.
Let justice triumph in our land
as we live and strive for freedom.
Let our people stand before you
as you come to judge us.
Stretch out your hands, O Lord,
and have compassion on us.

[MajestyJo]

Let us pray:
God our Father,
inspire us with a great respect
for all human life
from the time of the child
growing in the womb
to the point of death.
May that respect lead us
to grow in a sense of responsibility
for all our brothers and sisters
throughout the world,
knowing that,
where one person suffers
and is degraded,
all of humanity
is belittled and abused.
May we grow in a sense of love and care
for those less fortunate
than ourselves,
and lead us to do something
about the difficulites in our world.
Amen.

[MajestyJo]

Let us pray:

Lord Jesus,
when you met Zacchaeus,
the tax collector
whom everyone hated,
you looked at him
and called him by his name.
In doing that,
you gave him back his dignity,
and he changed his life around.
He was able to see himself
in a better way,
and so he gave back to others
the money he had cheated
from them.
Lead us to show respect
for each person as an individual,
treating others in the same way
that we would like to be treated.
Amen.

[MajestyJo]

A German-speaking boy was often physically
abused - beaten by his father for
the smallest thing he ever did wrong. The
father did not call him by his name. Instead,
whenever the father wanted the
boy to come to him, he whistled for him,
as if his son was a dog.

Sometime later, the boy discovered that
his grandfather (whom he hardly knew)
was Jewish. In his twisted way of thinking,
he thought that his grandfather’s
“Jewishness” somehow must be the reason
why his father was so cruel and nasty
towards him.

Having been insulted and abused by his
father, the boy grew up with strange
views about himself, and with strange
views about Jewish people. This boy was
Adolf Hitler.

After leading Germany and Europe and
much of the world in devastation and
war, costing the lives of so many people
(including millions of Jews), Adolf Hitler
committed suicide on this day in 1945
in his bunker deep under the ruined city
of Berlin.
Let us pray in silence for a moment, thinking
of all who died during that war…

(pause…)

Let us pray for all who suffer
from hatred and prejudice,
from abuse and ill-treatment,
and for all who are victims
of other people.

Let us pray, too,
for the people of violence,
that they may change their ways
and learn to respect others.
Let us pray for ourselves,
that when we face
what is negative or evil
we may have
the courage and generosity
to break the cycle of violence,
taking responsibility
for the direction
in which we want our lives to go.
Let us pray
that we may always do to others
as we would wish them to do to us.
Amen.