Friday Prayer

 

God of Prodigal Loving-kindness, we confess that Your ways are not our ways.  We can pass by on the other side too often, letting fear of the other and our overactive/over analyzing/ over thinking convince us that it is just too dangerous.  And we have moments when we reach out and help, not counting the cost or whether anyone is watching to help tell our story later.  We have moments when we wander away from faith, from You, from ourselves to explore and experience what we think we want.  We get lured by advertisements to live the good life which clearly can’t be found here where there is laundry and grocery shopping and don’t get me started on the doctor’s appointments!  We have moments when we disconnect and distance ourselves from others, even as we are sitting shoulder-to-shoulder.  We have moments of prayerful persistence.  Here we are, O God, a few days before we begin our Holiest Week, a week Palm Sunday Parades and broken bread/spilled wine and facing death of Friday and silence of Saturday to the promise of new life.  This isn’t just a story about Jesus, this is our story.  This isn’t just Jesus’ life, it is the wayless way of life with You.  Help us, heal us, hold us as we prepare to hear anew and afresh a story that can mold our lives in a cross-shape where at the center are the parables of Loving Kindness and Prodigal Faith that might linger for the rest of this year.  In the name of the One whose life is the light to every day, Jesus the Christ. Amen.