A Prayer for the New Year

Each year I am blessed to serve the Upper Room Sunday School Class at West End United Methodist Church in Nashville as we focus on the meaning of Advent and Christmas. In honor of them and all they teach me I offer this prayer for the coming year.....

God make me uncomfortable with easy answers to difficult questions. Make me miserable with half-truths, so miserable in fact, that I do the difficult work of ferreting out truth.

Only then can you take up dwelling in my heart.

Use my righteous indignation at injustice, inequality, oppression and exploitation and show me how to harness it in love to work for your justice, your equality and your peace.

Only then can you take up dwelling in my heart.

God bless my tears shed for those who suffer and let them water the ground so that peace springs up where war chokes you out. Let empathy flow out of hearts hardened by years of belief in self-sufficiency.

Only then can you take up dwelling in my heart.

Finally, Lord help me have faith that I, all alone, can make a difference in the world, even in the face of overwhelming odds.

Only then can you take up dwelling in my heart. AMEN

(Copyright © 2015 Karen McIntyre. May be reproduced for use in worship.)