Vespers - 24 September 2017

Your righteousness is like the mountains, O God; your judgments are like the great deep; man and beast you save, O LORD (Psalm 36.6); therefore we implore you to give your much needed assistance, provision, direction, comfort, strength and restoration to our brotherhood throughout the world, and where they are in great need or distress. We intercede especially on behalf of those in Kenya, Mexico, Puerto Rico, and in the areas hit by Hurricanes and destructive storms. O Lord, hear our prayer.

Almighty God, you have taught us not to think of ourselves only, but also for the wants and needs of others. We pray for the many burdened and oppressed we know who have been crushed and had their purposes and dreams overthrown…; for the many who are afflicted by poverty, worn down and worn thin by disease, illness and ailment…; for the many who are weary and heavy laden, in gloom and misery, and those suffering for righteousness’ sake... Help them in the ways that are most fitting and suitable to their need that they all may rest in you. O Lord, hear our prayer.

LORD God, the Almighty, who gives power to the faint, and to the one who has no might you increase strength. Even though youths shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted; yet those who wait for you, O LORD, shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint. O God, lift us up on eagle’s wings; renew our strength; rouse us with renewed hope and life to run and not be weary, to walk and not be faint (Isaiah 40.29-31). O Lord, hear our prayer.

Lord of all righteousness, whose ways are right, whose plan is for “human flourishing” – which can only come by flourishing in your wise ways instead of trailing off in the otherwise ways of our out-of-order world. Father, look on our country, the different generations who have different ways of decoding and deciphering our present society; the educational institutions that often see themselves as morally and intellectually superior; the social agenda-izers in our land that are wreaking havoc and are throwing around threats and name calling at those who withstand them. O God, not just for our sakes, but for future generations, for our children’s sakes, and our grandchildren and greatgrandchildren’s sakes, please turn this moral and social mayhem on its head. Help us to see our own fault in this mess (certainly our faults corporately, and maybe personally), to own up to it, confess our wrong, and seek to pursue right. But also bring many in our nation, before it’s too late, to see the train wreck they are producing; to recognize how they are about to leave behind themselves a reeking heap of destroyed human lives. Good God, have mercy on us. O Lord, hear our prayer.

Finally, Father, we would like to talk with you about those in our lives – our children, parents, siblings, close friends – who are making some very significant decisions. Some of those decisions have been bad decisions and have brought them into trouble. Put people in their lives to help them out of those troubles and learn from them. Some of those decisions will be life changing. Guide them and provide them with wiser voices to speak into their lives so that they will succeed. O Lord, hear our prayer. 

All of these prayers we ask in the name of our Lord Jesus….