A Sunday Prayer for a Guarded Heart

Lord, you have told us to guard our hearts above all else, because everything we do flows from them. We confess that we guard many things more carefully. We guard our time, our reputations, our comfort. Our hearts we leave open to whatever comes.

So on this day of rest we ask you to do what we cannot. Clean the spring. Take out the resentments we have been keeping, the fears we have been feeding, the desires we have been excusing. Fill the place they leave with your word.

Set our feet on the path that grows brighter. We cannot see far, and we do not ask to. Give us light enough for the next step and the courage to take it. Keep us off the road of the restless, the road where people cannot sleep until they have done harm.

For the young among us, give fathers and mothers and elders who will hand on what they have received. For the older, give the patience to keep saying it. And for all of us, gathered today with your people, let worship do its work at the source, so that the week's streams run clean. In Jesus' name. Amen.