“In the stillness of the quiet, if we listen, we can hear the whisper of the heart giving strength to weakness, courage to fear, hope to despair.” -Howard Thurman At least 1,300 people have been killed in floods that have ravaged southern Asia over the past few weeks, with hundreds more still missing and millions […]
May Growth Be Our Hope: Prayers for Floods in Brazil and Kenya and a Collapse in South Africa (May 9, 2024)
God of our lives, How we long for our world and our hearts to grow: To grow in faith, understanding, and questions. To grow in our hope for a better world. To grow further and wider instead of apart. To grow our lives together. To grow in love for each other. May growth be our […]
Love Lives Again: A Holy Week Prayer After the Moscow Attack and Baltimore Bridge Collapse (March 28, 2024)
God of us all, Love lives again. Love triumphs over the hate, pain, and death. You were there at the very beginning of time and gave us the beauty of this world: gorgeous flowers and trees, oceans, and mountains, galaxies we will never comprehend. Yet, you still knew we needed your love. You gave us […]
Under Every Frozen Ground: Prayers for Ukraine, Gaza, Somalia, Nigeria, and Ethiopia (January 25, 2024)
Under every floor is soil, within all soil are roots—taking in nourishment in the unseen dark. Frozen though it may be, each seed holds possibility of transformation. God of transformation, we cry with the Psalmist “how long” when we look upon the suffering of your beloved people and the ways we pit ourselves against one […]
So Much Sorrow to Grieve: Prayers After the Morocco Earthquake and Libya’s Derna Floods (September 14, 2023)
Why are you so full of heaviness, O my soul? And why are you so disquieted within me? – Psalm 42:6 There is so much sorrow and so many things to grieve in our world. Help us, God, as we weep for all the suffering surrounding us. For the people of Morocco who experienced a […]
To Bask in Easter a While Longer: Prayers for Khartoum and Cyclone Ilsa (April 20, 2023)
Holy and Redeeming God, I want to bask in the glow of Easter Sunday a while longer. I want to believe that things are miraculously better in this world you created. I want, long for, and hope for your presence to rain down and water my weary soul. I look around and find there are […]
Lord of the Dance: After the Seoul Crowd Crush and Uganda’s Ebola Outbreak (November 3, 2022)
Sandhill cranes dancing at sunset at Staten Island Rd. Preserve, Northern California. Photo art by a member of the World in Prayer team. Dance, then, wherever you may be,I am the Lord of the Dance, said he,And I’ll lead you all, wherever you may be,And I’ll lead you all in the Dance, said he. –Sydney […]
Not a Spirit of Fear: A Prayer After the Attack on Salman Rushdie, and for Refugees (August 18, 2022)
Holy One, In these times, with the world news heavily upon us, we reflect upon words from 2 Timothy: “For God has not given us a spirit of fear and timidity, but of power, love, and self-discipline.” (New Living Translation) Ten years ago, speaking in New York (U.S.), Indian-born British-American novelist Salman Rushdie said that […]
You Make All Things New: An Epiphany Prayer for Kazakhstan, the Philadelphia Fire, and Colorado (January 6, 2022)
As we continue to ground ourselves in the new year, we celebrate(d) Epiphany on January 6. We remember the legacy of the Magi, who disobeyed the unethical and immoral orders of King Herod and pray that they may show us a way forward with more justice. We celebrate the day Jesus’ physical manifestation was made […]
We Are God’s Poem: Prayers for Cuba’s Protests, Haiti, and an Iraq Hospital Fire (July 16, 2021)
“For we are God’s handiwork [trans. poiema, poem], created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God has prepared in advance for us to do.” – New International Version “We are God’s works of art, created in Christ Jesus to live the good life as from the beginning he meant us to live.” – […]