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Prayers for Today: Services for Congregational Worship

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AND GIVE YOU THANKS

O God, our true life, in whom and by whom all things live, who by Your spirit commands us to seek You, and are ever ready to be found; to know You is Life, to serve You is freedom, to praise You is the joy and happiness of the soul. I praise You and give thanks for Your greatness.

For seasons of bounty and of beauty, for nights of quiet sleep, for days of health, for the glory of the earth and its ministry to our need; I bless You, O God.

For all the generations before us who, through effort and pain, have wrought so that we might be heirs of liberty and truth and peace; I thank You, and pray that I may enter into this heritage.

For new hopes of fairer life and nobler freedoms that stir the hearts of many people today; I praise You, O God.

For the discipline that enriches, for the burden that strengthens, for the failure that is true success, and for the sorrow that enlarges the soul; I give thanks, O God.

For the soul, and its powers, for strong desires to fashion ourselves after Your likeness, and all our world into new orders of beauty and right; I rejoice and give You thanks, and to You be the honor and the glory, worlds without end.

DELIVER US

O God, the Source of all being and all joy: fill us with Your power.

From jealousy and envy, from unrighteous anger and an unforgiving temper: deliver us.

From all ambition and greed which bring want and distress to multitudes and shut us from the fullness of life: deliver us.

From an unquiet spirit, from despondency and gloom, and from forgetfulness of the manifold goods of life: deliver us.

O You who are the God of each and of all, who has breathed Your own Spirit into Your children and made us to be at one with each other as members of your family: enable us more fully to provide refuge for every human being.

Amid diversities of knowledge and of faith, may we be one in affection and in unreserved devotion to You.

WALK WITH JOY

O God, who turns into morning the shadows of the night; may we be children of the light and of the day. Enlighten our reason, make clear our conscience, and purify our affections. We give ourselves to You this day, praying that we may be so governed by You that faithless distrust and all evil thoughts may be driven from our minds; that we may walk with joy in the light of Your countenance.

LIVING UNITY

O God, in whom are calmness and peace, reconcile the dissensions which divide us from one another, and bring us into a unity of purpose which may bear some likeness to You, that we may be spiritually one, as well in ourselves as with each other, through that peace of Yours which makes all things peaceful, and through the grace and tenderness wherewith You are our Father and Mother forever.

LITANY OF LOVE

O God, the source of all being and all joy, let Your blessings be upon us, and fill us with Your love. From all jealousy and envy, from all unkindness, from offense given or taken, from unrighteous anger and an impatient spirit, from a hard and unforgiving temper, and from evilspeaking, O God, deliver us.

From all ambition and greed which bring want and distress to multitudes and debase the bodies and souls of many, shutting from them the fullness of life, O God, deliver us.

From an unquiet and discontented spirit, from despondency and gloom, from doubts of Your boundless love, and from forgetfulness of the manifold goods of life, O God, deliver us.

Inspire in us that spirit which suffers long and is kind; which envies not; boasts not itself, is not puffed up; which does not behave unseemly, and seeks not its own. Grant us to be filled with the fullness of Your spirit.

Quicken in us that charity which is not easily provoked, which thinks no evil, which rejoices not in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; which bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things; the charity which never fails; That so by Your grace we may establish good will upon the earth.

O God, the Father and Mother of us all, who has breathed Your own spirit into Your children and made us to be one with each other as members of Your household: enable us to make Your house a refuge for every wounded spirit, a home for every aspiring soul. Amid diversities of knowledge and of faith, may we be one in spirit, in affection, and in devotion to You.