SOUL SURMISE

THE JACOB AT BETHEL PRAYER - My Prayers in Fitzroy Service 19.7.2020

(This is the prayer that I used in the Fitzroy Service on July 19, 2020... It comes out of a sermon on Jacob and God meeting him in that dream at Bethel... you can watch the short service HERE)

 

God, we thank you for your grace

For your reaching down from heaven

To touch our ordinary lives

In unexpected places

When we might feel anxious

Vulnerable

Disorientated

Wondering what is next

God we thank you for your presence

As Paul prayed for the Ephesians

May the eyes of ours hearts be enlightened 

In order that we may know the hope to which he has called us

The riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, 

And his incomparably great power for us who believe. 

May we know the power that is the same as the mighty strength 

He exerted when he raised Christ from the dead 

And seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms

God open the eyes of our hearts

To see you beside us

Wherever we are

Your grace seeing us

Loving us

Your encouragement energising us

To commitment 

To a partnership

That will see your promises of a new Kingdom come

And your will being done on earth as it is in heaven

God we take hold of your promise

To stick with us until you’ve done everything you promised

May we sense that presence, grace and promise 

We offer ourselves to it

In Jesus name

AMEN

OFFERING THE SOIL OF OUR SOULS TO GOD - FITZROY PRAYER 12.7.2020

This is my prayer in Fitzroy on July 12th 2020. I had just preached on Jesus story of the sower and the seed and attempted to sow "where you treasure is your heart will be also" into the soil of our souls (watch the service HERE).

 

GOD

We live in vulnerable times

Fragile times

We have been broken by the Coronavirus Pandemic

We have grieved

We have been anxious about family

We have worried about our jobs

We have been found confinement harrowing

We have been under pressure mentally

Lord, the opening back up is testing us too

We are anxious about second spikes

We are wary of mixing in public

And we are almost angry at those who are not wary

We are fearful that a return of the virus will have more devastating economic effect than the first

We are concerned at the speed of the opening.

 

Lord we are in vulnerable times

We are thankful Lord that the vulnerability

Has made us more open to you

We have prayed more Lord

We have sought to trust more

We have read your Bible more in keeping with its context

Lord you have made us ponder our world

You have forced us to rethink our lives

You have given us an unexpected space

To reflect on how we are living

You have scattered the word of your wisdom across our souls to teach us, rebuke us, correct us and training us in righteousness.

 

Lord we offer the soil of our souls

May it not be hard

May it not be shallow

May it not choke the light with worry and wealth

May we work its fertility.

 

Lord we offer ourselves

By your spirit search us in these opening up days

That we might ask with total honesty

In what we rush and clammer for immediately

Where our treasure is

Because there you tell us 

Is our heart.

 

So Lord, we ask that you would collide and caress

Your word and these pandemic days

That the seed of your word

Would overcome the thorns of our world

To germinate

And grow

And harvest

In our lives 

And therefore in the lives of those around us

In Jesus name we pray

Amen

THE MYSTERY OF BADNESS & THE MYSTERY OF GOODNESS (for Fiona Donohoe)

Our entire city have been drawn into the sadness of the tragic death of Noah Donohoe.

As a community we prayed and hoped as a vast number searched for Noah after he went missing.

As a city our hearts broke at the news that his body had been found. Today, as he is buried, we all want to reach out to his mother Fiona with love and comfort and prayers.

As a pastor I find these situations very difficult. We want to find answers but as the singer David Gray once sang, "we are trying to spell what the wind can't explain". There is a mystery of badness. It is beyond us. 

What we can bring is the mystery of goodness. God never promises that there will be no mysteries. He promises, though, to be a rock and refuge in the mystery. I so pray that for Noah's mother and family today. 

 

Mysteries

Intrigue in the novel and film

But in reality

Their crashing in on our lives

Smashes our hearts to pieces

The shards blow out across communities

Cutting deep.

 

Today you grieve in the mystery

The mystery of badness

The mystery of randomness

The mystery of why you

The mystery of never being explained

Yet having to learn to live in it.

 

I believe in another mystery

The mystery of goodness

The mystery of love

The mystery of comfort

Jesus called the Holy Spirit a comforter

So, I pray for you

That in the mystery of why

In the mystery of what

You will know the mystery of how

Comfort can

Against the odds 

Reach into the depths of your broken heart

And mysteriously give you resilience

As you walk into the grief

Of the days and years to come.

 

THE PNEUMATOLOGY BENEDICTION

 

My benediction in yesterday's Fitzroy On-Line Sunday Service (17.5.2020) after a sermon on the workings of the Holy Spirit during and after lock down...

 

Janice and I send it out as a blessing for the week ahead...

 

 

May God the Father bless us and keep us

 

May Jesus words be a lamp for our feet

 

May the Holy Spirit accompany us, abide in us, comfort us and guide us as individuals and a community of faith.

 

AMEN

JANICE AND MY WEEKLY BLESSING - CORONAVIRUS BENEDICTION #5

(my weekly benediction from our Fitzroy service on May 10.2020. It is created from the key words of the sermon but you don't need to have heard it to understand it. Janice and I send it out as a prayer for another Coronavirus week of lockdown)

 

May God the Father be our refuge and strength,

May Jesus be our way, truth and life,

May the Holy Spirit lead us out of a refuge on a curve to change the world.

 

FOR THOSE GRIEVING DURING CORONAVIRUS TIMES

(as a pastor, these are difficult days to minister to those who have lost loved ones. I wrote this as a way to reach across the distance and prayerfully bring comfort to those grieving in strange ways at these strange times...)

 

These are tough days

To go through difficult times

As if there is an extra bitter twist

In the already hard to swallow taste

These are even more deadly days for dying

An extra separation.

 

This social distancing, for safety

Is dangerous to the heart

The heart needs proximity

To touch brows

And hold hands

To whisper 

“I love you,” 

"Thank you,” 

“Goodbye.”

 

Jesus invaded every distance

Ripped the veil of holy detachment

To reach in close

To enter deathly places

To feel the isolation

To experience unfair separation.

 

So now, Jesus sympathises, empathises

And understands our loneliness

Our grief and pain

And weeps with us

Nothing can separate us from him

Or his love.

 

Today, I pray

That your loved one

And you 

Will know the tender eternal arms

Wrapped around tight

And hear the gentlest whisper of God.

 

In this hellish distance

May you know heaven near

Nearer than the closest we could ever be

In these strange times

Or in any other times. 

COVID 19 BENEDICTION #2 - LORRAINE'S EASTER BENEDICTION

( I wrote this for Easter Sunday Service 2020. While I wrote it I was on with friend Lorraine who was not too well with a mild form of the virus. I sent it out to hear and to us all as a blessing...)

 

May God the Father never forsake you

May Jesus the Son be with you, in all of your suffering

May the Holy Spirit burst resurrection through your heart and soul.

Amen

COVID 19 BENEDICTION #1

A benediction blessing for Coronavirus Times...

 

May God the Father's love be a constant companion

May Jesus teaching be illuminated in this dark

May the Holy Spirit lead us

Into what to do for others

And how to take care of ourselves

Amen

WHEN MYSTERY SHIMMERS

I was glancing through my poems and thought that this one was appropriate for the Coronavirus Times. These are days of mystery. We will tend to ask God questions and some prayers might not find the answers we hope for.

This poem was written from a pastor's perspective, watching members of Fitzroy watch loved ones in difficult times.

The last verse is Philip Yancey's take on Isaiah 40:31:

They will soar on wings like eagles;
    they will run and not grow weary,
    they will walk and not be faint.

Yancey points out that this is in reverse. Flying, running and finally walking. He suggests that the spiritual life starts with us believing we can fly. Everything is possible. Then we land we a thud when some prayer is not answered as we think it should have been. We are still running but soon life's tragedies have us down to a walk. 

Yancey concludes that the mature among us are not the flyers but the realists. Even strong faith in the midst of life's tough times can be a trudge and a crawl. Perhaps we need to reassess why in that verse we always concentrate on the first not the third stage?!

Mystery is an awkward little dancer.

 

When a loved one’s tossed in turbulence

You watch them smashed whichever way

And God never seems to bring the calm

No matter how hard you pray

May unseen threads of mercy

Weave in, the unravelling doubt

May God grab you by the finger

Before life’s hurting drags you out

 

Knowledge loves the questions

Cos it has a seamless answer

But mystery shimmies all around

She’s an awkward little dancer

And when she dances out of sight

Leaving the soul that lonely ache

May God send a holy comforter

Before you crack up in the heart break

 

Lord, we flew on wings like eagles

Then landed with reality’s thud

We ran but soon were walking

Now crawl through this tear soaked mud

We mature in a world that’s broken

Confessing what our part is

We sing these songs to temper grief

And hope in their catharsis.

OFFERING (IN CORONAVIRUS TIMES)

In Fitzroy the offering is the most important part of the service but it is not about money. Oh we lift a monetary collection but the offering is about what we are offering to God. We offer ourselves every week. 

Last Sunday we had no offering plates as that was another way to pass the coronavirus so the offering was at last separated from money. I finished my sermon with it. It was a rough mix. This is slightly better put...

 

Offer yourself

To let go of the familiar script

To imagine a whole new way to be

 

Offer yourself

To realign with God

To in-sync with God’s order of things

To this sabbath seemingly forced but maybe gifted

 

Offer yourself 

To sensible actions

To selflessly protect

To sacrificially serve

Family, friends and strangers

 

Offer yourself 

To be a boredom breaker

To be a hope breather

To be an anxiety reliever

To be a conduit of being with

A contributor of love.

 

(I believe the image is from Foodbank Canada which seems appropriate)