The limits of human power

Lord, you know that today I stand humbled before you. We tried to help, using our human resources and wisdom, and it was not enough. It was not nearly enough.

Father, engrave this lesson on our hearts: it is not our human strength or resources that the world needs, but your almighty and loving power. Help us to realise that we are merely poor and imperfect servants of that power, not its directors or masters. Imperfect as we are, Lord, we your Christian people ask that you would use us to speak mercy, peace and truth to the needs of our world.

Help us, Lord, to be really radically dependant on you.

From poverty and weakness for the poor and powerless

Father, hear the prayer I offer for a young Sudanese orphan who, at the start of his first year of Unversity finds himself without the means to meet his fees. The deadline for payment is so close, Lord, that I know I am utterly powerless to take any practical action that will resolve this dilemma in time. But the universe and everything in it is yours. The cattle of a thousand hills are yours. I pray for Mark to be filled with assurance of your love and blessed by the provisions of your divine providence. Please Lord, could just a small herd be credited to Mark's account?

Healing and works of power

Lord, I've noticed that there are a whole bunch of people for whom I want to pray for healing. Please show me how best to pray for each one of them. Please show me also who would be glad for me to pray with them, who would be glad for me to pray for them, and who, if anybody, should not be asked or told about my praying at the moment.

In your loving mercy, Lord, please pour out your healing power for my family, friends and neighbours who are in pain, illness, anxiety, disability, deafness and distress.

Lord, I pray also that you would show me how to bring together telling of your wonderful words of grace, mercy and peace, and the experience of your signs following. Please fill me anew with your Holy Spirit, that I may speak, work and pray for your kingdom on earth, as Jesus would speak, work and pray.

Zimbabwe

Father, I pray again for Zimbabwe and all her people. I pray for your kingdom to come, and your will to be done in that suffering country, and for the people to be given relief from fear, violence, hunger, poverty, despair and all the oppressions of the Mugabe regime.

Thank you, Lord, that some food is getting to those who need it.

www.barnabasfund.org/

A Happy Day

We worked really hard and got loads done, but for me at any rate it was a really happy day, with my children both here, and in top form.

Thank you God for such a happy and successful day.

Something to look forward to

I'm really getting excited, because I'm having a "help-the-house" party this weekend, and both of my children and some friends are coming. It's all about getting the house ready to sell. Please God, may we have some dry weather for the painting, and may we have a fun time, even though there's lots of work to do!

I had the nicest walk today with my friend Dylan the dog. We really are good friends now. Thank you, Lord, for giving us dogs as companions.

If there is a God, why does he feel so far away from us?

"Life Questions" said the U-tube video clip title. 'Looks interesting,' I thought, and clicked on it. A young man was talking to camera, explaining the major questions he wanted to ask about life. And the title above was the first one.

'Poor soul,' I thought. 'How have you never had anyone teach you how to enter and practice the presence of God? ' Very easily, I now realise. When we were a rational, scientific culture, we apprehended God, if at all, intellectually. Now we are a postmodern culture, we want experiences to sweep is up into them, and we want everything immediately - now!

But God isn't like that. He loves us to seek after him, he woos us as we are searching, giving us now an intimation of unspeakable bliss, and now a hint of the deepest peace, and now an unechoing empty cosmos, where we break our hearts as we feel as if he has left us alone.

The two thousand year-old Christian tradition has many ways, formal and informal, of seeking communion with God. But then again, God is not a slot machine, that he should respond the same way every time we go through a set routine or ritual.

The way to the Father, in principle, is through Jesus, his son. And no-one can know the Son, except through the Holy Spirit, who makes him real to us.

So Lord, I pray for that young man, and all the other people who may share his question and also for me, that you would send your Holy Spirit upon us, and help us to know you more clearly, love you more dearly and follow Jesus more nearly, every day.