To Encourage You

Matthew 6:9 “Pray then like this: “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.”

Father, help me to always remember that you are not just my Father in heaven but our Father in heaven.  Help me not to always make it all about me when I pray, but to make it also about others who are just as much a part of your family.  Some of us are poor, some rich.  Help me to remember those who have less than I do, and to be willing and ready to help them anytime you call.  And for those who have more than me, keep me from envy or greed.  Whatever any of us have is a gift from you as you have determined is best for us. Help me to always be thankful for those gifts.  Some of us are from the USA, but there are others in your family that are from every other nation under heaven. Help me to love those who are different just by virtue of where they were born or by the color of their skin. Help me remember that you placed them in the nation they are in, and you knit them together in their mother’s womb just like you did me. When I interact with them, help me to remember that that other person is your son or your daughter, and your eyes are on them every moment of the day. You know my thoughts, words and actions toward them. May those thoughts, words and actions be influenced by the fact that you loved them enough to die for them, and as I act toward them, I act toward you.   And Lord, some of your children are languishing in prison, persecuted simply because they call you their Father.  Help them endure, Lord, and help them be witnesses to their captors of the wonderful grace of God even in the midst of their suffering.  You placed us all in Your body, and as you’ve told us “The eye cannot say to the hand, ‘I have no need of you,’ nor again the head to the feet, ‘I have no need of you.’ On the contrary, the parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and on those parts of the body that we think less honorable we bestow the greater honor, and our unpresentable parts are treated with greater modesty, which our more presentable parts do not require. But God has so composed the body, giving greater honor to the part that lacked it,that there may be no division in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another. If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together” (1 Corinthians 12:21-26).   Help me to remember the very young who are in your family, young in age and young in the faith.  Give me the longsuffering grace that you have toward them as you slowly but surely mature them in the faith.  And help me to remember the oldest among us.  Help me to honor each and every one of them as you have instructed me – to encourage the older men “as you would a father, younger men as brothers, older women as mothers, younger women as sisters, in all purity” (1 Timothy 5:1-2).  And some of us are suffering physically or emotionally right now. Help me to have eyes to see these hurting ones and reach out to them as I have opportunity.  Yes, Lord, help me to be all about us and not just all about me.  That’s your will for me, or you wouldn’t have told me to pray in this way.