World News in Prayer – Thursday, April 10, 2025

“You will never feel proud of your work if you find no joy within it; your best work is always joyful work.”
Stevie Wonder

Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, order your disciples to stop.” He answered, “I tell you, if these were silent, the stones would shout out.”
Luke 19:39-40 (NRSVUE)

God of joy,

As we enter this holy week, we are reminded of the terror that this world can bring.  When our own beloveds are misunderstood, mistreated, and deeply hurt, we are reminded that you have experienced the same thing.

We are reminded that this world is
So deeply heavy
Broken
Torn into pieces
Beaten down
Dried up

We remember that the people in our families, villages, communities, country, and world who we love are both holding grief in one tired hand and embracing joy in another.

Remind us, Lord, that this kind of joy is not only the fleeting kind of momentary joy that gives us pause, but the type of joy which is a practice and is part of our embodied selves.  The kind of joy within us that we carry with us alongside the truly awful.

God, remind us of this joy that goes with us just as Christians celebrate Palm Sunday and enter this holy week.  Remind us that Jesus paused and reminded us that even the stones held joy.

We lift up all of the hurting places of this world as well as the places which embody this deep, aching joy that moves us to change, to love, to care.

We pray for:

• The people of Sudan, where the humanitarian crisis continues.
• The whole world as extreme trade tensions continue to escalate.
• The many people who were taken away from their communities in the US due to deportation.
• The people of Myanmar left behind after so many dear lives have been lost.
• The recent deaths of several of your children in Ukraine.
• Those affected by the recent measles outbreak in the US.

God, may we always find you in all that we do and with all of your hurting places in this world as we also show us your beauty.

Remind us that you go with us in the most terrifying situations as well as in the joy we carry with us into uncertainty.  Hold us, and may we, too, shout for you and dance into your brilliance as we are reminded of this: the treasure of our faith, the embodied, undeniable gift of joy.  May we carry you and shout your name in our hearts:

Now
Today
And forevermore

Amen.