God our creator who goes before us
You draw us forward in faith
Like a pillar of fire across desert wastes
A rock of assurance
As we journey
Speak to us with your words of comfort and wisdom.
Prayer of confession
God of love and forgiveness
Save us by your tenderness
From each deed that is destructive
From each act that grieves you
From each thought that is careless
From each idea that is unloving
From each word that hurts.
Help us to face up to your call on our lives, by creating love and
goodness, community, society where it has been broken. In Jesus Name, Amen.
The Lord’s Prayer in our own language
Psalm 88
Lord, the God of my salvation,
I have cried out by day and in the night before You.
2 Let my prayer come before You;
Incline Your ear to my cry!
3 For my soul has had enough troubles,
And my life has approached Sheol.
4 I am counted among those who go down to the pit;
I have become like a man without strength,
5 Abandoned among the dead,
Like the slain who lie in the grave,
Whom You no longer remember,
And they are cut off from Your hand.
6 You have put me in the lowest pit,
In dark places, in the depths.
7 Your wrath has rested upon me,
And You have afflicted me with all Your waves.
8 You have removed my acquaintances far from me;
You have made me an object of loathing to them;
I am shut up and cannot go out.
9 My eye grows dim from misery;
I have called upon You every day, Lord;
I have spread out my hands to You.
Our prayers for our Covid world, and for Yemen, Myanmar, China, Hong Kong, Nigeria, Belarus, Russia, US, UK, UAE, Ethiopia, Syria, Iran, Brazil, our own country, climate change, doctors and nurses, carers, teachers, those confronting injustice, our families and friends and ourselves…
May God’s hand be upon us, your angels protect us and the Holy Spirit work in and around us. Amen
Song “Ukuthula”
Blessing
Loving God help us to follow you
Into a place of quietness,
Where we may face beasts and wilderness
But we will know the presence of angels
Even in the desert times. Amen.
