Prayer for Today

 

Please pray with me,

God amid all that is happening around us and within us, the streets of our minds and hearts and souls are as crowded and chaotic as Bethlehem was centuries ago.  God amid the Ceasars today who still issue demands and decrees that hurt and dehumanize, we pray You will enter still.  We pray the words of, “O come, O come Emmanuel (which means God with us)”.  That You would enter our world and re-author our stories in these days.  When we wonder, where is the spirit of Christmas; help us not force an artificial, prepackaged version of what should be.  When we struggle with how to prepare and our own expectations, help us sort through the straw of our barn-like lives.  When we feel like there is no room, remind us that You don’t ask for a mansion, just a manger in our hearts.  In the ten days to come, help us be open, curious, awake, and alert to Your presence that is everywhere we are.  In the ten days to come, let our souls feel their worth amid the ache.  In the ten days to come, may we not be searching for things to purchase, but the ways Your presence knocks softly on the door of our life in the most delightfully unexpected ways.  O come, O come Emmanuel, be with each of us this day.  Amen.