The lectionary this week includes a reading from Acts 2: 42-47, illustrating how the early Christ followers ordered their lives together. This prayer speaks to their situation and to ours, connecting what they did to how we might respond through Christian Aid:
“All who believed were together and had all things in common; they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as they had need.” Acts 2: 44-45
Loving God,
we pray for your jigsaw world –
its diversity and complexity.
Some pieces fit together
and some appear from a different puzzle:
yet all bound together
by your love.
God incarnate in our world,
we pray for the work of Christian Aid
as it seeks to fulfil the words of Jesus:
‘I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.’
Generous God,
you challenge us to feed the world,
to bring ample, clean water to all
by fighting for justice and by giving generously.
You urge us to offer help respectfully
allowing those in need
to set the agenda.
The world cries out in pain:
the pain of poverty;
the pain of war;
the pain of natural and home-grown disasters;
the pain of commercial exploitation.
In solidarity, you ask us to give and give again
until the pieces fit and the world is whole and plentiful.
Copyright © 2013 Martin Hazell