PCH Disciples
Prayer, Compassion, Humility
“Do not think that love in order to be genuine has to be extraordinary. What we need is to love without getting tired. Be faithful in small things because it is in them that your strength lies.” - Mother Teresa
Prayer Resources
Below you'll find a host of resources to deepen your walk with God through prayer. If you have other resources that you've found helpful, please contact me via email and we and talk about adding your gift to the site. Thanks and I hope you enjoy.
Prayer of St. Francis
Lord, make me an instrument of thy peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
Where there is injury, pardon;
Where there is doubt, faith;
Where there is despair, hope;
Where there is darkness, light;
Where there is sadness, joy.
O divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek
To be consoled as to console,
To be understood as to understand,
To be loved as to love;
For it is in giving that we receive;
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
It is in dying to self that we are born to eternal life.
Prayer for Middle East
Prayer for Middle East
O God Source of Life, Creator of Peace. . .
Help Your children, anguished and confused,
To understand the futility of hatred and violence
And grant them the ability to stretch across
Political, religious and national boundaries
So they may confront horror and fear
By continuing together
In the search for justice, peace and truth. . . .
With every fiber of our being
We beg You, O God,
To help us not to fail nor falter. Amen
Rabbi H. Rolando Matalon
Congregation B'nai Jeshurun, New York, NY
Prayer of Repentance and Joy
Here's a great prayer if you are feeling the weight of poor choices, the desolation of prayerlessness or the despair of the isolated ego:
"Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit within me. Cast me not away from thy presence, and take not thy holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of thy salvation,and uphold me with a willing spirit.
Then I will teach transgressors thy ways, and sinners will return to thee. Deliver me from blood guiltiness, O God, thou God of my salvation, And my tongue will sing aloud of thy deliverance.
O Lord, open thou my lips, and my mouth shall show forth thy praise.
For thou hast no delight in sacrifice; were I to give a burnt offering, thou wouldst not be pleased.The sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise." - David, King of Israel
David moves from confession to praise. That's what happens when we encounter the grace and mercy of a Holy God. Praying today will be your day of hope and salvation.
Compassion Resources
Below you'll find a host of resources to deepen your walk with others with compassion. If you have other resources that you've found helpful, please contact me via email and we and talk about adding your gift to the site.
Developing Compassion
Having compassion takes courage.
Having compassion takes resolve.
Having compassion is not simply a feeling of sympathy for another or a passing feeling of pain, it is a willingness to enter int and in once sense, carry a person's pain.
In his exploration on on what it takes to practice compassion, Henri Nouwen wrote:
“Who can listen to a story of loneliness and despair without taking the risk of experiencing similar pains in his own heart and even losing his precious peace of mind? In short: “Who can take away suffering without entering it?” ― Henri J.M. Nouwen, The Wounded Healer: Ministry in Contemporary Society
We can more effectively enter into someone's suffering when we are first aware of our own places of pain in the past as well as in the present. We need not be fully healed, but being in the process of healing will help us both enter into someone's suffering without confusing their world with our own.
Here ares some questions that will help you prepare to practice compassion:
Identify places in your past where you experienced loss. How have your processed that loss? In what ways does that loss have an impact on you today?
Are you comfortable sitting in silence with someone's pain? What benefits have you found in your own life with someone who allowed you to feel your pain without trying to "fix"you?
Do you have space in your heart to enter into someone's suffering?
Take time right now to pray that God creates in you a heart that can receive and enter into the suffering of others.
Living an unsafe Life with Francis Chan
Humility Resources
Below you'll find a host of resources to deepen your in humility with God and with others. If you have other resources that you've found helpful, please contact me via email and we and talk about adding your gift to the site.