Love: Work
Reflections and prayers for a world at work, by Phil Jump and John Weaver
You are not contained by my imagination
You are not defined by my expectations
You are not hindered by my disappointments
You are not restricted to my ideas.
You are not controlled by my ambitions
You are not bound by my abilities
You are not measured by my resources
You are not reduced to what I can comprehend.
You are not curtailed by my shortcomings
You are not diminished by my mistakes
You are not shaped by my assumptions
You are not limited to what I can believe.
And yet you choose to call me yours.
To make mine the hands and feet through which you might be present today
Mine the lips through which you might speak
Mine the life in which others might glimpse your presence.
So release your presence through me I pray
That this clay jar
might somehow display
the treasure contained within.
Amen
You could have kept on walking
when a woman touched your garment’s seam;
Compelled by the urgency of another
whose voice was louder.
Their need more public
holding a position that would cause many
to afford him more attention.
You could have kept on walking
when you knew your power had done its work;
Problem solved
Mission accomplished
Needs met
Goods delivered
Box ticked
Case closed.
But you stopped,
and chose to find
the one whose petition
you had unknowingly granted;
To affirm her faith
restore her dignity
and declare her release.
You could have kept on walking
but you chose to stop
because you cared.
And in this world of deadlines and schedules
where human endeavour is reduced to results and statistics,
The fruit of your creation, a commodity to be costed and measured
Help me to know when it is right to pause and engage with another
because you have called me to care.
Amen
God of all being,
you hold in your hands the farthest corners of the universe,
yet your eye can see inside the tiniest atom
You reign above the affairs of all humanity
yet know us so well
that even the hairs on our head are numbered.
Help us find strength
when all around seems turmoil
Not by making sense or grasping control
but through deepening our trust in you
and pointing others to that rock on which we stand.
May we find our certainty
not by expecting to always understand
but through the security of your presence
in the midst of our confusion.
Let your cross still speak:
The place where you touched the depths of human suffering
yet opened to us the doorway to eternity.
As we proclaim its message,
we also bear its mark
and so embrace reality
with all its hope and pain.
Amen
Teach me to pray Lord;
To do more than place before you my own concerns and expectations;
To seek help to accomplish more than simply what I have already determined;
To assume more than simply my definitions of good
are those to which you should comply.
Remind me that prayer is not an invitation
for you to become involved in my agendas
so much as one that I might accept
to align myself with your intent and purpose.
Help me to hear your voice amidst the noise of this day’s clamour;
To align my routines according to your ways;
To seek to see this world
through the eyes of the one to whom all things belong.
Amen
Ever present God
We reach out for you
not to escape the troubles and tragedies of this world
but to help us make sense of those we can
and to find strength to bear those that we can’t.
We struggle at times to comprehend
the harm that we seem capable of doing to one another
and we struggle no less to understand
why at times, tragedies that are of no-one’s fault
inflict the pain that they do.
Today we pray for all who bear the brunt of that pain
Those caught up in the stories that we all know about
and those whose troubles are unseen
but no less a challenge to bear.
And we pray for ourselves
for we are not untouched by the realities of this world.
And yet we thank you too
that amidst the struggles that we face
are glimpses of your goodness and grace
moments of immeasurable joy
and signs of hope
May we never be defined by the circumstances that surround us
but who we are in you
the hope that is contained
in the Gospel that we share
and the promise that is ours for eternity
Through Christ our Saviour and Lord
Amen
Click here to
download a pdf version of these prayers
These prayers are taken from
Love: Work - Reflections and Prayers for a World
at Work, co-written by Baptist ministers Phil Jump and John Weaver, and published by Darton, Longman and Todd in 2021.
It is available to
order from the Baptists Together online shop.
Photo:
Matthew Mcbraye on Unsplash