This week’s challenge in the devotional A Journey Into Wholeness focuses on the hunger and the needs os so many around the world who suffer from deprivation. The prayer card has sat on an easel on my desk all week reminding me of this fact and as I is drawn into freedom there is also responsibility to those who lack the comforts I take for granted. The litany is also taken from the devotional.
A Litany for the Brokenness of Hunger
Blessed are you, God of the universe
Lover of justice and righteousness
Bringer of freedom and wholeness
We bow down before you, for your name is holy.
You care for the widow and the orphan
You grieve for the sick and the dying
Your compassion is stirred by the poor and the starving
We bow down before you, for your name is holy.
You are to us a forgiving God
Though you punish our misdeeds
You will have mercy on us when we repent
We bow down before you, for your name is holy.
Pause to remind yourself of the millions around the world who live in poverty
God, be with us
Before us to guide us
Behind us to protect us
Beside us to befriend us
Make us aware of your world.
God, be with us
Give us eyes that see the poor
Give us ears that hear their cries
Give us hearts that meet their needs
Make us aware of your world.
Read scripture passages for the day from the Daily Lectionary
Pause to remind yourself of times that you have been indifferent to the cries of the poor. What action can you take to change this?
Have mercy on us, son of the living God,
Draw us closer into intimacy with you,
Draw us deeper into a life at one with yours,
Draw us forward into the ways of God’s kingdom.
Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your Kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as in heaven. Give us today our daily bread. Forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us. Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For the kingdom, the power and the glory are yours. Now and forever. Amen.
God, you have set us free
Not free to do what we please
But free to love you with our whole heart gladly
Free to love our neighbors as we do ourselves.
God, we need to know your freedom
Free us from our selfishness
Free us from our indifference to the plight of the poor
Free us to love and serve you with all our being.
God, we want to live in your freedom
Free us to show compassion to all who are cast by the wayside
Free us to share generously so that others will not hunger or lack provision
Free us to live in love and mutual care.
God, you call us to freedom
Freedom to love you with our hearts and souls and minds
Freedom to love our neighbors as ourselves
God, may we enter the freedom of your kingdom today.
Pause to offer up your own prayers for those who face hunger around the world
Let God’s compassion bloom in us
Let God’s righteousness bear fruit
Let God’s generosity be harvested
May God’s life be born afresh in us
May God’s light shine in hidden places
May God’s love take root and grow