Author of Gratitude,
For all the ways you bring love and awareness into our lives,
we say thank you.
For the opportunities we have each day to practice patience,
we say thank you.
For time and safe spaces to worship, meditate, and reflect,
we say thank you.
For all the ways you provide daily bread,
For the opportunities we have each day to practice patience,
we say thank you.
For time and safe spaces to worship, meditate, and reflect,
we say thank you.
For all the ways you provide daily bread,
we say thank you.
Creator who is ever-present,
INSPIRE us to be generous.
EQUIP us to be compassionate.
COMPEL us to be grateful.
Amen.
Creator who is ever-present,
INSPIRE us to be generous.
EQUIP us to be compassionate.
COMPEL us to be grateful.
Amen.
Hi Em,
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing this prayer with us. Many helpful thoughts. Most certainly your prayer should be as you wish it. Yet since you shared it with us, I offer a few suggestions for your consideration, for whatever they are worth.
To me, COMPEL seems like the exact opposite word to apply to being grateful. Slightly along the lines of Luther's notion of the freedom of a Christian, it seems like FREE would fit better. Then I wonder if generosity and compassion tend to flow from a state of being grateful, so perhaps FREE us to be grateful could be listed first among the three closing action requests.
From my perspective, opportunities to practice patience don't rate as highly as love, worship, and daily bread, nor do those opportunities tend to have the same widespread appeal, so that thank offering seems almost whimsical in comparison to the others, and thus to my (likely warped) sensibilities, would fit in the flow better if offered last.
Thankful for your ongoing positive effects on the world,
Paul