There are people in some of the Congregations of the Presbytery where I am currently serving in ministry, who will be finding the events of the next three weeks a challenge. They will be looking for hope, and seeking for justice. People from my Congregation at Queanbeyan, and people in the Goulburn Parish, will especially be impacted.
Today at Queanbeyan, the Prayers of the People were led by Marg Cotton, who invited members of the Congregation to pray for these people.
i invite you to join with her and the people today who prayed:
Lord God, we come before you today
seeking to make sense of a world
where there are many contradictions.
Bad things happen to the young and the innocent.
Wrongdoers prosper and seem to have
no remorse for the havoc they cause.
Sometimes it seems that there is no justice,
and that inequality and incivility are increasing at an exponential rate.
We make the effort to build a respectful
and hopeful community,
but the work of a lifetime can seem fragile
and doesn’t seem to be able to survive
without our continuing vigilance.
Misunderstood and misunderstanding,
we ponder our next steps.
Like the people in Jeremiah,
we feel cut off from your fountains of living water
and all we can see the is the cracked cistern
that can hold no water at all.
Where will we find hope?
When will we see justice?
Teach us, Lord, how we should be acting
in the current circumstances.
Let us first turn to you in humility
and recognise our need to be remade
and refreshed by you.
Come Lord and show us the path to take.
On this first day of spring
give us hope for the future
and a sense of purpose and optimism.
With the coming of spring
there is the hope of new life.
Help us to be ready to grow
and work together in this new season,
to hear your plans for us
and act to bring them into being.
In the name of Christ, we pray: Amen.
An Informed Faith 