Morning Prayer/Phil 1:9-11

In this secular age,

beneath these seemingly silent heavens,

in a world busy with other things,

this is my prayer for you.

That love will overflow,

rising from a spring

you did not dig,

running somewhere beneath the surface

of things,

its source hidden in God.

A taste of Eden.

A glimpse of how things might be

if the world were not so broken,

if we knew how to live

with one another,

with the earth,

with God.

That you will learn to see

what cannot be counted,

to hear what goes unsaid,

to find something holy

in the ordinary business of being alive.

In the light coming through the window.

In a stranger who stops to help.

In bread passed round a table.

In the earth beneath your feet,

wounded, and still giving.

That you will learn what is good,

and have the sense to recognise it

when it comes dressed as something small,

and the courage to choose it

when it costs you.

Even when the way ahead is unclear.

Even when prayer feels like silence.

Even when you cannot see

what difference any of it makes.

I cannot keep sorrow from your door.

I wish I could.

There will be things I cannot mend

and days when I will not know

what to say.

But I pray you will know

that you are held in a love

older than your own beginnings,

a mercy that does not let go

when you lose your way.

And may your lives bear fruit.

Not the sort that gets noticed

or earns applause,

but the quiet kind:

a burden made lighter,

a place made at the table,

someone who is less alone

because you were there.

The kingdom grows like that,

in places nobody thinks to look,

in ground that looks too hard

for anything to take root.

This is my prayer for you,

saints in Christ Jesus.

That your love will grow wiser,

that you will learn to tell

what matters from what doesn’t,

and give your lives

to the things that lead to life.

And when the harvest comes,

may there be goodness in the world

that would not have been there

if you had not lived.

Until the day when the heavens

are no longer silent,

when the earth is healed

and the knowledge of God

runs as deep as the waters of the sea.

Through Jesus Christ,

to the glory and praise of God.

Amen.