"You Who Tend Your Flock..." - 2 March 2025
You who tend your flock like a shepherd; who gather
the lambs in your arms; who carry them in your bosom, and gently lead those
that are with young (Isaiah 40:11); we trustingly present our entreaties and
appeals to you, confident that what we ask faithfully, you will give
effectively because you have assured us that if we ask in your name you hear
and answer us.
Look lovingly and tenderly on your global Church, this
congregation, First Baptist Del City, Fairview, Faith Memorial, and Fellowship
Baptist Church. Restore her life and lead her in paths of righteousness for
your name’s sake. Take her lack and fill it lavishly. Guide her shepherds so
that they will be shepherds after your own heart who will feed your people with
knowledge and understanding (Jeremiah 3:15). Further, we lift up Dan and Carol
Iverson in Japan, imploring your continued care for them financially,
physically, and faithfully.
Watch over and build up agencies like Baptist Home
for Children, International Justice Mission, Project 66, Hope Center of Edmond,
RestoreOKC, and Hope Pregnancy Center, as they seek to be part of you drawing
people toward new ways of living, giving folks hope, and exhibiting what it
means to do justly, love mercy and walk humbly before you (Micah 6:8).
We know with certainty that it is not from the east
or from the west and not from the wilderness comes lifting up, but it is you, O
God, who executes judgment, who puts down one and lifts up another (Psalm
75.6-7). Therefore, we ask you to be with the nations of this world, and the
leaders of the nations, our own country and the elected and appointed officials.
May they know – and receive with humility – that you are the great I AM, the
King over all creation, Lord of all, visible and invisible; and in that humble
knowledge they would lead justly. And bring each of us to work out righteous peace
and peaceful righteousness. Cause all peoples to recognize that the times of
ignorance you once overlooked; but now you command all people everywhere to
repent, because you have fixed a day on which you will judge the world in
righteousness by a man whom you have appointed; and of this you have given
assurance to all by raising him from the dead (Acts 17:30-31).
Though you made all things good, and in making
humankind it was all very good; yet we sadly concede that with the fall of our
first parents has come drawbacks, decline, and death. Since our forbearers
turned to live life on their own terms, we have all not only followed them but
suffered the harmful effects. Be with those mothers who are pained by
miscarriages; fathers who must stand by while their children hurt; wives and
husbands who are helpless in the face of their loved ones’ decline; children
who watch as their families suffer. There is so much grief and sadness. And we
pray also for those walking through their specific dark-as-death valley (…).
Hold them close, in the very palm of your hand and near to your heart. Fortify
their faith in you, wipe away the tears, embrace the sobbing, and renovate
them, one and all, body and soul.
Finally, restore the lives of those who have
strayed and lead them back into paths of righteousness for your name’s sake (…).
And now we gather up our requests and pray as Jesus taught us, saying, Our Father…
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