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
Jeremiah 20v7-9
O Lord, you have enticed me,
and I was enticed;
you have overpowered me,
and you have prevailed.
I have become a laughingstock all day long;
everyone mocks me.
8 For whenever I speak, I must cry out,
I must shout, “Violence and destruction!”
For the word of the Lord has become for me
a reproach and derision all day long.
9 If I say, “I will not mention him,
or speak any more in his name,”
then within me there is something like a burning fire
shut up in my bones;
I am weary with holding it in,
and I cannot.
Our prayers for our Covid world, and for Yemen, Myanmar, Rohingyas, Uighurs, Hong Kong, Nigeria, Belarus, Russia, Eritrea, 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 “When peace like a river”
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.
