I hope that these emails and prayers are useful, and that you are able to spend a few minutes at noon each day, as we pray together as a church family. Please do keep sending your prayer suggestions to me, so that we can make sure we are praying around the needs, burdens and encouragements of our whole church family.
Monday
“‘Truly I tell you,’ Jesus replied, ‘no one who has left home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for me and the gospel will fail to receive a hundred times as much in this present age: homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, children and fields – along with persecutions – and in the age to come eternal life.” (Mark 10:29-30)
Heavenly Father, thank you that you provide for your people eternal life in the future, and an abundance of new family in this life. Please help us to fix our eyes on Jesus, and to follow him in the way that leads to eternal life. Please help us as a church family to also be family to one another, particularly to those in need over the coming weeks. Amen
Please also pray today for Spain.
Tuesday
Keep us, good Lord, under the shadow of your mercy,
Sustain and support the anxious,
be with those who care for the sick,
and lift up all who are brought low;
that we may find comfort
knowing that nothing can separate us from your love
In Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.
Please continue to pray today for Spain.
Wednesday
God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
courage to change the things I can,
and wisdom to know the difference.
There are many things in our own lives today, Lord, that we cannot change and would like to. When our limitations make us frustrated, please give us serenity. Where we see needs we can fulfil, or time we can use for you, please give us courage. Please give us wisdom to trust you as we re-enter lockdown, so that both our frustration and our fear lead to knowing you better. Amen.
Please also pray today for Sri Lanka.
Thursday
Loving heavenly Father, at this time of great uncertainty in our country and around the world, we pray that people would turn to you for stability and comfort. We pray particularly for those who don’t yet know Jesus, that through some means in the midst of all that is happening they would hear the good news of him. Grant them repentance and a knowledge of the truth, that they may know you and the secure joy of eternal life in him. For we ask in Jesus’s name, Amen.
Please continue to pray today for Sri Lanka.
Friday
We pray for Christians working in places of power and influence, who make decisions which may affect many people: those in politics, the media, and advertising, that they may know how to act and what to say in order to be faithful to Christ. Amen
Please pray today for [St Barthélemy]https://www.operationworld.org/country/saib/owtext.html), St Helena, St Kitts & Nevis, and St Lucia.
Saturday
Our gracious Father, thank you for all those working in health care, and especially those in our congregation who are serving the community within the NHS and public health bodies. Grant them, and all who work in essential services, protection and strength for each day’s challenges, and to work with skill and patience. We also pray for the Prime Minister, the Health Secretary, and the chief medical and scientific officers that they and those who work with them will have wisdom and insight sufficient for the decisions they need to make at this difficult time. We ask in Jesus’s name, Amen.
Please pray today for St Martin, St Pierre & Miquelon, and St Vincent.