April Prayer of Confession

Dear Lord, we confess this morning that we have fallen short of who you have called and formed us to be. You have called us to love and we have chosen fear. You have made us to live in community and we have chosen isolation. You have made us to lead with grace and instead we have chosen judgement. You have called us to love our neighbors as we love ourselves, and we have forgotten how to do both. Instead, we have walked right by our neighbors when they need a friend or a hand, preoccupied with our own busy lives. We have ignored the hope you have called us into, and instead have been rattled with fear by the climate of the world today. We confess, Father, that we have spent too much time comparing ourselves and competing with the very people you have placed around us as opportunities for connection and sacrificial love.

We confess that as the world turns slow in its arc around the sun, so too we are slow to turn from sin towards you. Help us, Father, to reflect your love and hope to a world in desperate need of light. We want to be the moon, steadfast in our own orbit reflecting you.

In a world that can feel like is on fire, help us to remember that you are still on the throne. We confess that we have allowed many different things and people to climb on the thrones of our lives, to disastrous ends. This morning, Father, we come to you and ask that you will take your rightful place in our hearts and lives.

Empower us today to love our neighbors: the ones sitting here today, the ones who live right next door, and the ones across the globe. We ask this week, Father, that you will show us practical tangible ways to reach across dividing lines with grace. That you will give us opportunities to move towards pain with the balm of presence and love. That you will open our eyes to the beauty of the world around us, and give us chances to bend the arc of the universe, however slightly, towards justice and peace.

Hear this good news from 1 John 4:9-10,
God showed how much he loved us by sending his one and only Son into the world so that we might have eternal life through him. This is real love—not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins. — I John 4:9-10