Vespers - 22 April 2018



(Physical and Emotional Infirmities): O LORD, you who are near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit (Psalm 34.18): we recall before you folks we know who are dealing with – and not always dealing well with – physical and emotional infirmities… First, we ask you to support them through the raging tempest as it churns up the mire of doubt or despair. We also cry out to you to restore to them some normalcy and order. Bring them to the right place where they can come to rejoice in their sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope (Romans 5.3-4). Finally, show us how we can best serve them and bear their burdens with them. O Lord, hear our prayer.

(Guests of Heritage): Please lift up Heritage as a city on the hill, to whose light the nations will go, saying “Come, let us go up to the LORD and hear his Word that he may teach us his ways and we will walk in his paths!” And then may they go forth like lions lying down with lambs, beating their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. To this end we pray for the guests you have sent to Heritage recently…Thank you for drawing them to us. And those whom we can truly bless, and who will be a genuine blessing to us, may they stick and stay. Finally, we implore you to continue to send more, as we are able to integrate them. O Lord, hear our prayer.

(Hills and Plains Presbytery): Provide for our young Presbytery all that it needs to band together in closeness. Lead our decisions and directions. Give to each congregation and church-plant the resources and resilience that is essential for our steadiness and growth. Preserve the leaders of each church and their families, giving them wisdom and health. Keep us from being swayed by, and swallowed up in, the social idolatries and angers of our age so that we might be called the Holy People, the Redeemed of the LORD;  and we should be called Sought Out, and a City Not Forsaken (Isaiah 62.12). O Lord, hear our prayer.

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