Lord Have Mercy

(Below is a prayer and response to today’s turmoil happening in the city streets of the USA.)

      Our Father in heaven, your word says we must agree “wholeheartedly with each other, loving one another, and working together with one mind and purpose. Don’t be selfish; don’t try to impress others. Be humble, thinking of others as better than yourselves. Don’t look out only for your own interests, but take an interest in others, too.” We must have the same attitude that Christ Jesus had. (Philippians 2:2-5 NLT).

      We have failed you dear Father. We have lost the ability to look beyond the color of our skin and cannot see street protests as the expressions of our brother and sisters’ pain. We have accepted violence as the tool of the powerful and silence as the default response to our despair. We have relied on our religious meetings and public image as the only ways to measure spirituality. You have said a long time ago what you want, Father. The prophet said: “Do you know what I want? I want justice—oceans of it. I want fairness—rivers of it. That’s what I want. That’s all I want.” (Amos 5:21 MSG). We have failed you dear heavenly Father!

      “Listen to my prayer! Look down and see me praying night and day for your people. I confess that we have sinned against you. Yes, even my own family and I have sinned! We have sinned terribly by not obeying the commands, decrees, and regulations that you gave us through your servant Moses.” (Nehemiah 1:6-7 NLT).

      To Moses, you said: “You shall not hate your brother in your heart, but you shall reason frankly with your neighbor, lest you incur sin because of him. You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against the sons of your own people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the LORD.” (Leviticus 19:17-18 ESV).

      We have sinned against you. We have not loved our neighbor and have not listened to their hurting and grieving voices. We have failed to raise up a generation of people who are able to uphold justice and practice mercy. Many moons ago, you have called me to be a teacher among your people. You have said: “teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.” (Matthew 28.20 ESV). I have failed you my Lord. Please be with me all the days of my life. Forgive me.

      “Be merciful to me, O God, because of your constant love. Because of your great mercy wipe away my sins! Wash away all my evil and make me clean from my sin!” (Psalm 51:1-2 GNT). Declare to me your will for my life. Say to me again: “I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, 'Know the LORD,' for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the LORD. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more." (Jeremiah 31:33-34 ESV).