Prayer for jobs

We pray God for those who are looking for jobs and those who are finding it difficult to hold on to the job that they have. Guide those who are looking for a job to get one which will make use of their ability and qualification. Strengthen those with a job to learn the trade and perform well. We submit everyone to your care so that people struggling to find a job may not get desperate and find it difficult to face people. Jesus, we pray specially for those who move jobs or find their calling in something different from what others do. May new jobs be created and may new opportunities arise because of creative thinking and alternative ideas. We pray Jesus for job creating industries and communities which identify their responsibility of feeding families. May churches use their spaces to offer accommodation to young people searching for jobs and use their elaborate network to help in job searching and finding. We pray Holy Spirit for courage, inspiration and positive thinking for young and middle aged people so that they continue knocking on doors till one opens. May your church merciful God teach about the dignity of labour so that every job is one which has respect and dignity. May your doors of grace dear Lord open for your people. Amen.

Prayer to unleash the power of God inside us

Help us God to identify the power of the image of God that we are created in. May we not step back thinking that we are ordinary and simple people who can't make a difference in this world. Instead, allow us to connect with our soul so that we can see the sufferings in life and react accordingly to them. Today, make us think that we don't need the usual things of the world to succeed but only need to uncover the image of God inside us. Lord, may this understanding inspire people from ordinary backgrounds, bereft of flashy degrees and societal success to come out and do their best by believing profoundly and deeply in God. Jesus, may we not hide in the comfort of the weekend but explore the power of our mind which is fed by unending faith in God. Someone is waiting for us to speak and act, to make a difference and to change something. May we use the power Peter had to say that "Silver and gold I have none, but what I have I give you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, get up and walk." May our prayer this weekend trigger healing, fight injustice and bring happiness. Today we hold on to you Holy Spirit and believe that indeed we can change the world for the good. In your name triune God we pray. Amen.

Prayer to overcome depression

Gracious God, we pray for all those who are depressed because of various reasons. We submit those who have family problems, lack of a job, tensions at the work place, pressure in schools and colleges and are depressed because of the huge expectations that society has from them. Help us to admit that we need help and prayers and that we need to reach out to various people using our own experiences and stories of having undergone depression. Jesus, help us to help ourselves and others so that we and others don't get too desperate and take extreme measures. Instead, allow us to build communities of love and understanding like you did. As anyone could come to you and get help, may we be of help to those who approach us. Strengthen us Holy Spirit to overcome depression in its various forms so that we will live the life that God wants us to. Teach us to not ignore and push away those who are depressed or on the verge of depression and instead treat it as an emotion that all of us go through. Rescue us and those close to us dear Lord from the jaws of depression. Amen.

Prayer for best use of inventions during catastrophes

Lord God, we pray that you teach us well as to how we should use the inventions that you have inspired us to make. As we undergo a severe cyclone in several parts of the country we pray that governments and departments don't fight each other and pin the blame on one another. Instead, send the spirit of wisdom to each one to work as a team for saving lives and securing livelihoods. We pray for a responsible media that makes use of great technology with investigative and life saving reporting and not making a mockery of those affected. Help us Jesus to pray and help those who are at the receiving end of cyclones and heavy rain by sending food and clothes and helping in rehabilitation. May our prayers make us uncomfortable and push us to be in solidarity with those who suffer so that this natural catastrophe will be limited in causing damage. Be with us Holy Spirit so that every single brick of development will help people during worst crises instead of worsening them. Amen.

A prayer for child like innocence

Allow us God to revisit our childhood and experience the innocence that made us children. May this weekend offer wonderful memories of how carefree and tension less we were as children. Dear God, may we for a little time forget deadlines, EMI's and work pressures and lie down on your inviting lap to close our eyes and feel comforted with your warmth and love. Help us Lord to truly unwind and release the pressures which have made us inhuman and angry. Speak to us Jesus and remind us of the virtue of being child like instead of always being adult, cold and ruthless. Join us and play with us Holy Spirit with the light, pleasing breeze that you are so that in the midst of all our problems we will trust your wisdom. May we dilute our problems with child modelled plans of relaxation and recharge ourselves with adventure and excitement from you God. Amen.

Prayer for the birthday of St. Mary

Dear God, as we celebrate the birthday of Mother Mary help us understand why you choose people for doing your work. Help us to accept your choice instead of always desiring what someone else has. Mother Mary was young, inexperienced, had no backing of the prevalent power structure and yet was chosen by God to bear his son. We understand now that she feared God but was fearless when it came to engaging with the injustice in society, her wisdom was much beyond her year's and she had love and compassion for people in the world. Help us today God to be fearless, to act beyond  our age when the need arises and to have love and compassion for the poor and needy. We pray for individuals in society who have been Mary like through their actions. Some of them have been attacked and done away with but never the less they live on like Mary. Help us Jesus to accept that we must be fearless in our life and not be scared of death. It is better to die with courage than to live with fear. May we intercede to Mary and become Mary in our life so that God selects us to be God's workers to bring about justice and peace in this world. Intercede for us Mother Mary, the fearless one selected by God. Amen.

Prayer to overcome wrongdoing

We commit ourselves God before you and offer ourselves for contemplation and correction. We look back at our life and seek your wisdom to understand and accept acts of hurt, misunderstanding, anger, hatred and high handedness that have come out of us. We seek forgiveness from you for every short coming and every insensitive remark or attitude that has slipped out from us. What has come out cannot be taken back but we can seek your forgiveness God to correct ourselves and learn to become better people. Help us to understand Jesus how we can look at the needs of people and give importance to them rather than to ourselves. Give us strength Holy Spirit to overcome our ego which is continuously tempting us to do evil and bad things. As we fold our hands God and pray, may it be a folding of our ego and our soul in commitment towards good and nice things. Amen.

Prayer for strength during grief

Give us we pray God the grace and understanding to grieve with those families who have lost a near and dear one. Show us the way to be with them, say words of comfort, be anything but judgemental, and offer our own stories of pain and grief as a means of empathetic friendship. Help us Jesus to offer hope like you did to Martha and Mary. We believe in you like they did and know that you are the resurrection and life. Those who believe in you will live even though they die. Lead us well Holy Spirit to pray for the departed that they rest in peace in paradise in the assuring presence of our fore fathers and fore mothers waiting with anticipation for the second coming of our Lord. May this hope lead us God to go to grieving homes with courage and strength to thank God for the life of those who move on to a better place while still being dear and valuable to their loved ones. Amen.

Prayer for Teacher's day

We thank you God for those who taught us and continue to teach us in schools and colleges and through conversations and messages. Our teachers inspired us, looked us in the eye and said we can do it, when people much closer had given up. We pray today for our teachers as they also need our prayers and good wishes. We take this day as all days to be thankful and respectful to what our teachers have done for us. We are guided by your life on earth Jesus to acknowledge the teachers who have taught us many things outside the class room and who stood for us when the world was against us. You made heroes out of ordinary disciples Jesus, and today we have become special because of your guidance and because of those who you chose to guide us. Thank you Holy Spirit for the spirit of commitment you have given to our teachers so that they taught us with very little and for even less but did it during sunshine and rain never for once giving up. Thank you Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.

Prayer during a festival

We thank you God for the opportunities to celebrate festivals with our brothers and sisters from different faiths. We hope that people live in harmony and use such opportunities to learn about one another and about our common histories. May the celebrations be a sharing of what we have and to make sure that no one lives in poverty and no one cries due to the lack of basic facilities.
As is said in Micah 4:3-5"...they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks: nation shall not lift up a sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more. But they shall sit every man under his vine and under his fig tree; and none shall make them afraid: for the mouth of the Lord of hosts has spoken it. For all people will walk every one in the name of his god, and we will walk in the name of the Lord our God for ever and ever." Thereby God, may we use the opportunities that we get to celebrate, as times to feed the poor, visit the sick and elderly, meet friends and family and love everyone we know and come across. Amen.

Prayer at the beginning of the week

Loving God, there are many things to feel sorry for and get angry about. But there are several other things to feel happy and hopeful about. Help us at the beginning of the week to feel strong in hope and be fearless in our pursuit of happiness and peace. In our relationship with you God we understand that we should always be hopeful and any set back is only a learning to become stronger. Jesus, help us to identify our strengths and stick to them instead of plotting how to hide our weaknesses. We have been inspired by you to think that we need not be ashamed of our weaknesses because our strengths are far greater and stronger. Holy Spirit, we thank you for giving us the courage to believe in ourselves and survive in the midst of adversities and various forms of evil. Bless us Lord for a strong and happy week where the feeling of accomplishment will out shine everything else. Amen.

Prayer with intercession to St. Mary

Help us God to submit ourselves before you for great things. We are talented because we have been created by you but we haven't peaked yet and realised our dream because we haven't come under your shadow of grace. Mother Mary was a pious woman who was already spiritual and yet when she submitted herself to you God instead of society, she became inspirational and fearless to bear your son and became the leader of the early church. We intercede with our Mother Mary and seek to be filled with the Holy Spirit which will make us fearless to fight any and every injustice and realise every dream we have because it has God's blessings. May we also we pray be born of the Holy Spirit and become Jesus like to do the impossible. With deep and loving intercession of Mother Mary we pray. Amen.

Prayer of hope

We give thanks to you gracious God for small, big and unending mercies that you so graciously shower upon us. Help us to understand that you will never allow anything bad to happen to us because you love us unconditionally. May we look to you in prayer and love one another unconditionally because that is who we are and what we should do. We pray for tenderness, care, sacrifice and love to be part of our reportoire so that people may experience God when they talk to us and relate with us. Show us Jesus how you naturally slipped into the role of the son of God and served those on earth without expecting anything in return. Accompany us Holy Spirit because then we can only reflect you in all circumstances. We seek you God in all that we do. Amen.

Don't replace God with self styled God men

Mob violence based on blind belief on self proclaimed God men

St. Luke 11:9-20

Jesus is teaching his disciples about faith and the need to bring faith into practice by asking, searching and knocking. The society then and even now is in the habit of being human and one part of us is the part which asks, searches and knocks. But who do we ask, where do we search and when do we knock? In today’s world it is not that we have lost the ability to ask, search and knock but we are doing it in a way which is different from what Jesus is talking about.

We ask self-proclaimed Guru’s, God men and women, and wait to receive blessings from them instead of concentrating on God and what only God can give. Going to church is to receive guidance from God through God’s servant and not to see a person who has replaced God’s self! We are going to places and asking diviners and prophets about what we should do in life, which course we should take, what time we should start a business and where we can built a house. How can men and women be greater than God? Anything that we need can be answered by God and then why are we wasting time on people who can’t even save themselves?!

Jesus teaches us to ask God and not just to waste time with people who are misleading the public. Jesus was questioned by the Pharisees because he was eating into their supremacy and putting an end to the lies they were spreading by replacing God with their selves. The sanctity of worship places were being challenged by changing them from places of peace to places of violence where importance of money was increasing rather than the essence on the importance on God.

What is Jesus then trying to tell us? If a man who has called it a day at home will help his neighbor in being hospitable and if a father will provide for his children how much more will our Father in heaven do for us? We are bound to be sad if we keep our faith in men. Instead we should replace this with faith in God. If someone on earth will offer us help, God will do several times more for us and will do so without expecting anything in return because God will always help people as they are God’s own creation and God loves them (us). 

Jesus casts out a demon from a person who was mute. He then starts speaking. But some then said that Jesus did it because he was associated with the demons. Jesus challenges this and says that a kingdom cannot stand against itself. We must belong to God’s kingdom to be healed by God and be taken care of by God because we are God’s family. We do not need magic, tricks and hallucinations to be healed.

The passage teaches us to be with God and live a life of faith which asks, searches and knocks at the feet of God. Do not place your trust with man made God’s but with the God who can only do good, save human kind and usher in peace. Amen.

Independence day prayer

Thank you God for giving us the spirit of independence and for helping us come out of the yoke of slavery. We are thankful for the lives of those who sacrificed everything they had for the freedom of our country. We are fortunate to wake up and sleep every day in a free world and country. The Bible says "Now the Lord is the spirit, and where the spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom." We seek the Holy Spirit Lord so that we will live in freedom and so that whatever anyone does to take away our freedom will end in failure. We pray that the spirit of freedom that is offered to us by God will set every citizen of this country free to live with dignity, being free to make their own choices, eat what they want, pray where they want and speak what and when they want without infringing on the rights and freedom of others. In the name of the one who has set us free, Jesus Christ our freedom. Amen.








Picture courtesy www.abc.net.au