Oh God, our Father, in these days of anxiety and turmoil we come to you and you alone as our hope and our protection.
We choose you over all other hopes in heaven and on earth.
We choose you over our wealth, over our health, over our wits, and over our words.
We choose you, O Lord, over our friends and over our foes, over our families, and over our political affiliations, to give us identity and direction in our lives.
We choose you, O Lord, over our own ideas and over our own education, over all we hold dear, and over all that is of our own creation.
We repent, O Lord, for allowing mere human words and ways to so captivate our attention and our hopes that our hearts have become unsettled and unable to rest before you, and that we have thus become unavailable to you and to others as vessels of your love in the world.
We do pray, O God, that you would protect the weak among us, that you would take up the cause of the oppressed and the underserved, the stranger and the sojourner, and that you would give us good courage as your people to walk in your ways, and to join you, Lord Jesus, in protecting and taking up the cause of the same.
And we ask, O Lord, this day, that you would fill us with your Holy Spirit, and so shape and change us, your beloved daughters and sons, that in every part of our lives – inwardly and outwardly, in the church and in the world, in our homes and in our workplaces, with friend and foe alike, no matter what the cost to our own lives and to our own selves, we might joyfully and courageously walk together with you in the ways of love and of your Kingdom.
We belong to you, O Lord, and we pray these things in your name – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Lord, have mercy! Lord, have mercy! Lord, have mercy! Amen and amen.
Artwork: The Holy Trinity By Andrei Rublev
