God of all creation, our hearts stir in these spring days as the blooms burst into riotous color. Winter has been long and lonely, and your gifts of the sparrows and the lilies offer manifold witness to your great faithfulness, mercy, and love. But often we don’t see them as gifts. Not necessarily due to ill intent, but because our hearts and heads are mired in the anxieties of this day. There are so many anxieties, o God, in our individual and communal lives, and they hurtle at us, one right after the other. So we pray today for those trapped in their mind, their body, their spirit. We pray for those who grieve a loss that isn’t explained or understood. We pray for those who can’t see a way out of their addiction, their debt, their relationship, their path. Spring reminds us that you are a God unafraid of beginning again, and again, and again. So for all who need new life, give them the eyes to see you afresh.
God of every nation, every race, every land, just claiming that truth feels scandalous in an age like this. So tightly do we hold our borders and boundaries, simply recognizing that there is One who overcomes and transcends them all demands that we subvert our national loyalties to our ultimate fidelity to you. We confess our trust too often in tools of violence to keep the peace. We lament with our whole heart every life lost and shattered by the dogs of war. We beg you to deliver us from the evil that divides human from human, that turns people into enemies, and enemies into conquests. You promise the day when justice will roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream. So for all of us in every nation, every race, every land, make this our common vision and shared hope.
God who shepherds us all, your goodness faileth never, even when we fail you in our living. We stray, you seek. We fall down, you lift up. We falter, you guide. We think we’re in charge of our lives, yet you humble us to place our trust in you. We pray for all who guide their families, their workplaces, their communities, their neighborhoods, all who feel the weight of their lives and responsibilities squarely on their shoulders. We pray for caregivers and teachers, chaplains and counselors, first responders and responders to people’s basic needs, that they be renewed in their labor again and again by you. Green are the pastures in which we rest. Still are the waters beside which you lead us. Right are the paths with you we walk. Your goodness and mercy chase us down. So shepherd us, o God, beyond our wants, beyond our fears, from death into life.
We offer all these prayers today in the name of Jesus, the Firstborn of all Creation, the Prince of Peace, the Good Shepherd, the One who taught us to pray, saying…