June 6, 2025. Prayer 1972. Earnest Love
Love has a quality about it that never gives up. It stretches across good times and bad. It goes to places well loved and goes to places no one would ever want to go. 1 Peter 4:8 says, “Above all, keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins: show hospitality; don’t grumble; serve one another with your gifts; be good stewards of God’s grace; speak God words to each other; serve with the strength God supplies.” The gift of love we have to share is earnestly, vigorously, and fervently at work in the world. Our faith informs us to be resilient with and for love.
Dear God, on my worst days remind me that your endless supply of love helps me to hold on and hand out love! Amen.

June 5, 2025. Prayer 1971. A Mother’s Love
We learn to love well when we are loved well. When a loving parent fully serves in the nurturing role of being a parent, a child grows in confidence that God’s divine love is real because the many large and small acts of love that have been received over time. A mother’s love can be described as a “soft power.” In 1 Peter 3:4 we hear, “let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God’s sight is very precious.” We say external beauty is skin deep. Internal beauty is everlasting and it moves mountains and hearts.
Dear God, let me meditate on my soft powers from within, that I may return gentleness and love to a noisy world. Amen.

June 4, 2025. Prayer 1970. Everlasting Love
Love has a way of creating more love. This would be the opposite principle of burning fossil fuels, an unrenewable energy source. Love is never depleted. The Bible tells us that love is a divine gift from above. God’s love keeps loving us no matter how far we have strayed from God’s way of holiness and reverence for life. In Jeremiah 31:3 we hear God say, “I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore, I have continued my faithfulness to you. Again, I will build you and you will be rebuilt.” This everlasting love gives us the hope and the energy to rebuild war torn worlds with new life.
Dear God, may your everlasting love enter the deepest parts of my soul that rebuilding begins with me! Amen.

June 3, 2025. Prayer 1969. Loving Mercy
When life brings us to the breaking point, when conditions in the world that are way beyond our control diminish and threaten our life, what do we pray? Psalm 31 has us sing out to God, “My times are in your hand; rescue me from the hands of my enemies; make your face shine on your servant; save me in your steadfast love!” When we remember God’s mercy, we “remake” and “refashion” and “remodel” ourselves in mercy. This means that in a harsh time, we make it an occasion for love. It means that in a Godless and unholy time, we make it an occasion to speak of God and holiness.
Dear God, when the world removes my strength and peace, reform me by your steadfast love and mercy. Amen.

June 2, 2025. Prayer 1968. Loving Neighbor
At the foot of Mt. Sinai well over three thousand years ago, Moses gave God’s instructions to the people in the way to live. This included what is referred to as “The Law of Moses.” There are hundreds of statutes of how to organize life as God’s holy children. In Leviticus 19:18 we read, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord.” God says to the people, “You shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy.” The instruction is to feed the hungry poor, do not oppress them, do no injustice, do not curse them, stand up for the elderly, and treat strangers well, in fact, love them.
Dear God, we see the result of so much hatred in this world, make me an instrument of your love and peace. Amen.

May 30, 2025. Prayer 1967. Pray Like Rain
You can’t make an omelet without breaking a few eggs. You can’t run from your car to your house in the rain without getting wet. You can’t pray without breaking open your heart and pouring forth tears. In James 5:13 we are encouraged, “Is anyone suffering? Pray.” When cheerful we give prayers of praise. When sick, we call in others to pray for us. “The prayer of faith will save, the Lord will raise us up, the Lord forgives, that we may be healed.” Prayer leads to healing just as Elijah of old prayed for rain. When we pray in faith, the heavens rain, and we bear great fruit.
Dear God, soften my soul with your words that rain down on me in prayer. My heart is breaking for your world. Amen.

May 29, 2025. Prayer 1966. Rain in Abundance
Life is often like the ancients who struggled mightily to survive in the parched desert places. Life is hard. And this is true even in the best of conditions. Psalm 68:9 praises God saying, “O God, you shed rain in abundance; you restored your inheritance as it languished; your flock found a dwelling in it; your goodness, O God, provides for the needy.” God is the caretaker of the parentless, the widow, and the abandoned. We sing praises to God who rides through the deserts and pours forth rain from the heavens. God’s voice is our power and strength to live in abundance. That is, all of us.
Dear God, you bless us with so many resources. We look to the abundance of rain. May we do the same with love. Amen.

May 28, 2025. Prayer 1965. Just Rule Like Morning Rain
To rule justly is the concern of God. Near the end of King David’s time, he sings a song of praise for all that God has done for the people. God has rescued them from danger and delivered them from their enemies. God has made led them out to live in a broad place under a just rule. Life flourished. In 2 Samuel 23:4 David sings to the Lord, “When one rules justly, it is like dawn in the morning light, sun shining forth on a cloudless day, like rain that makes grass to sprout from the earth.” God’s everlasting covenant with David and the people is one of justice, where all are secure and prosper.
Dear God, may it come to pass that what secures us and makes us prosper is greater than our many injustices. Amen.

May 27, 2025. Prayer 1964. The Rain from Heaven
It is God who blesses us to live on the earth. While the ancient biblical promise is that we shall possess the land as an inheritance, it does in fact remain God’s world and we are simply living in it. In Deuteronomy 11:11 we hear God’s promise to the children, “The land that you are going over to possess is a land of hills and valleys, which drinks water by the rain of heaven.” Moses is telling the people that this land, “God cares for and the Lord’s eyes are always upon it.” Moses asks the people to remember to love and serve the Lord with all your heart and soul. How are we doing?
Dear God, it’s so easy to believe what is mine is mine. All I have is from you. Let me treat all things as holy gifts. Amen.

May 26, 2025. Prayer 1963. Forty Days of Rain
It’s raining. This is the stuff of spring this year. More rainy days than sunshine. Sometimes life is like that. We all need a break. Hopefully the weather pattern will shift soon. Faith is about shifting and shaping. In Genesis 7:12 we hear in the story of Noah and the ark, “And rain fell upon the earth forty days and forty nights.” At the time Noah was 600 years old. Would we believe Noah thought, “I don’t need this.” What is notable is that Genesis reports that Noah took on both the clean and unclean animals to save above the flood. This is a remarkable gesture in a world covered in crisis.
Dear God, when the world seems awash in violence, upset, and inhumanity, make space for us all of every kind. Amen.