Wednesday of the Seventh Week of Easter
A former pastor once made a great statement that has stuck with me ever since. He said, “you can’t go wrong by praying scripture.” This comment was in reference to a question about prayer. A person had lamented that sometimes he just doesn’t know how to pray. I have that experience sometimes when I simply feel at a loss for words as I come before the Lord in prayer. This pastor suggested taking a passage of scripture or even a single verse and praying it back to God. In prayer, you can alter the wording in order to make the verses more personal or specific to a situation. Today’s Gospel is part of a longer prayer that Jesus prays for his disciples (us included). I feel led to take Jesus’ prayer to God and adopt it as my prayer to God today. Perhaps you’ll join me.
In today’s excerpt of Christ’s prayer, I find five specific petitions. Jesus asks the Father to protect us by the power of God’s name (God’s character and attributes); to make us one as the Father and Son are one; to give us the full measure of Christ’s joy; to protect us from the Evil One; to sanctify (set apart for sacred use, make holy) us by the truth of God’s word. I’m wondering if today you and I might take Jesus’ petitions and turn them into our own personal prayers each in our own words from our own heart to God’s. It might go something like this: “Loving God, your Name is powerful, your name is glorious, there is none like you. Protect me today, God, in the power of your most holy Name and let me not stray away from you. Help me, Jesus, to recognize the unity within the Body of Christ and to love others more perfectly today. Oh, Lord, how I need your joy today in the midst of all the chaos and uncertainty of life . . .” You get the idea! Now let’s each take this Gospel text and pray it back to God in our own words. And may the God who hears be especially real and close to you this day. Amen!
- Elizabeth Wourms