Prayer for Patience

Prayer for Patience

Read: Isaiah 40:27-31

O Lord, you who are love, who call us your beloved children,

We come to you this day, weary from waiting.  We have prayed for this virus to end, but our prayers have gone unanswered.  Like your beloved children of old, we feel like we have also been exiled, like our lives have been removed from all that gives us comfort and joy, and taken to a strange place ruled by an invisible disease. 

We have been cautious.  We are isolated and masked.  We wash our hands and spread sanitizer.  We have separated ourselves from one another.  And yet, the virus continues.  We feel powerless and weary of waiting.  It’s hard for us to wait.

Your servant Isaiah spoke words of comfort to the exiles long ago; words that comfort and lift us up in our own exile, “those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength.”  You call us to wait on you.  So, we wait.

Give us patience, O Lord, that in our waiting we may open our hearts to you.  We want to renew our strength, to fly like eagles, to run and not grow weary or faint.  But we must first open our hearts, waiting patiently to receive your strength.  We trust that in the stillness of our waiting you will be with us, speaking comfort in our silence, giving strength to our weary souls, bringing hope when all seems to be hopeless.

In our weariness may our hearts be comforted by your presence, and strengthened by our hope that you are with us, working in us, and in the world around us.  Though we are weary, as we patiently wait you renew our strength.  Trusting in your love we pray,  Amen. 

—

Submitted by:
Greg Smith, Director of Legacy Ministry, First Baptist Decatur