A Prayer For Those Who Face the Sunset

 

 

Omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent God, You not only created all things but are intimately and totally involved in all that You have created.  Your Son has taught us that not a sparrow falls to the ground, nor does a hair fall from our heads, without You noticing it.  Nothing just happens; everything fits in Your plan and serves Your purpose.  You rule and reign in love and mercy.  You are the God that has compassion on the weak and the weary, that sympathizes with the tired and the troubled, that comforts the lonely and the lost, that sympathizes with the despondent and defeated.   There are no surprises with You.  You know our every thought, our every trial, our every pain, our every problem.  

 

This week we pray for those who feel forgotten; who feel that they have fallen off of Your radar screen; who wonders if they were deceived into believing that they are numbered among the elect.   Do You really care for them; will the good they did count for anything on the Day of Judgment?  We pray for those whose days are long and whose nights are filled with dread; those whose pain is controlled by drugs, to which they will ultimately become addicted; those whose memories fail them and whose yesterdays are as blank as the darkest night; those who long to escape this world with all its pain and disappointments, its suffering and hopelessness.  These are those who can be found in hospitals, nursing homes, institutions, with caregivers and in hospice.

 

O God, we pray this week that You will grant them the comfort of the Apostle Paul when he wrote: “I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us who wait eagerly for the adoption as children and the resurrection of our bodies…Grant that they may fix their eyes not on what is seen but on what is unseen.”  

 

Father God, give those for whom we pray this week, a heart filled with holy anticipation of the return of our Savior and Lord.  May they heed the words, “Judge nothing before the time until the Lord comes, who both will bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and will make manifest the counsels of the heart and then shall every one have praise to God.”  May they live in the anticipation of the glory that shall be when the victorious Lord returns and ushers in His glorious Kingdom in which there are no tears, no death, no mourning, crying or pain, for the old order of things will have passed away.  He who is coming will come and will not delay.  Grant, O Loving Lord, that each one may find the strength to pray the shortest but most glorious prayer ever uttered by man: “Come Lord Jesus, Come.”   Amen