Vespers - 13 May 2018


  • (Coming Week): Father, since we recognize our lives, successes, upswings and downswings are in your hands; that though every way of a man is right in his own eyes, yet you, O LORD, weigh the heart (Proverbs 21.2): we pray for this coming week… Smile on us in our day-in-and-day-out routines; guide our conversations with family, neighbors, fellow-workers, employees, fellow-parents, grocery clerks and baggers, doctors and nurses. Direct our plans and proposals we will be mapping out; provide richly for us, and supply us with thankful hearts. O Lord, hear our prayer. 
  •  (Persecuted Church): Sovereign God, mighty in power, deep in love, rich in compassion; you know all of those who suffer in your name, for whom we now pray…: we remember those who are imprisoned for their faith. May they, like Paul and Silas, still sing your praises in their cells and see you do mighty things on their behalf. For those who are being tormented both in body and mind, give them the grace to endure and to see you comforting them in their afflictions that they may be able to comfort others with the comfort you have given them. For those who will be martyred because of their love for you, may they truly know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death. For those abandoned and banned because of their loyalty to you, may they know you are walking with them through this and be strengthened to endure. Make us ever mindful of our brothers and sisters around the world; and may we together overcome by the blood of the Lamb, by the word of our testimony, and by not loving our lives so much as to shrink from death. O Lord, hear our prayer. 
  • (Hardships): Almighty God, whose thoughts are not our thoughts and whose ways are not our ways: you never pledged us an easy life; you never guaranteed us unending success; yet we affirm with Proverbs and the Shorter Catechism that as long as it serves for your glory and our own good, there is the promise of long life and prosperity. We pray with, and pray for, those who are facing various hardships….Some are in deep desperation; others find themselves dented and debilitated; several are staggering; and not a few are stumped. O Lord, you who care about these and their predicament, bring them the props and provisions they are in need of. Send them hope and help. And may they all come to rise up and rejoice in you and your name. O Lord, hear our prayer. 

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