PRAYER Rx --- April 27
Dear Lord, as we search for answers to our problems, we ask how we can acquire faith. Open our eyes to see that we can not live without faith! ... A sixteen year old girl* wrote these lines in 1956: "We hold a cup of salt water in our hands, and then we are told that beyond the beach lies the Atlantic Ocean -- incredible! ... We hear someone plunk the middle-C note, and then we are told that Beethoven wrote symphonies -- unbelievable! ... We see purple and blue oil paint oozing from a tube, and we are told that Monet painted water lilies -- amazing! ... Love, compassion, forgiveness, all of our encounters with man, and with God, give us only a hint of the nature of God's totality. Faith is the determined and desperate will to believe that there are painters when we have seen only the paints; that there are symphonies when we have heard only one note; that there are oceans when we have observed only one cup of water!" Oh Lord, why is it so hard to believe in You as Creator of our universe -- our world? ... "Show me how to let my life open up for faith -- wide enough for the sky to fall in, full of You."**
In Jesus' name we pray.
Amen.
* (Nancy Bailey, Manhasset Congregational Church -- 1956)
** (by The Rev. David Redding)