Pastoral Prayer for June 12, 2022

(Please allow the words of this prayer to become your own personal words.)

Loving God,

Yesterday I prayed to have more compassion, but today I need to ask all over again.

Judgment comes easily for me.  Resentment sticks to me like an old habit. 

But compassion and forgiveness are slow to occur to me –

when they occur at all.

Sometimes I forget that you said, “Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors,” and “Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.”

Teach me your whole truth.  I so desperately need your compassion, Lord!

And remake me as an angel of mercy – an uncalculating, open-handed

distributor of your extravagant grace.

May compassion become my first impulse, and for their sake, not mine.

And thank you for the mercies upon mercies you show me every day.

Amen.