Melt our hearts, Lord!

As we begin the season of Lent, and slowly make our way towards longer and warmer days, I was touched by this pastoral prayer from one of our partners in ministry. What you will read below is a slight adaptation of that prayer by Pastor Steve Hundley, of Mission Valley Presbyterian Church. You have his permission to use it in your own services, should you choose.

“We come to You, O Lord,

at a time when much of our valley

has been gripped by snow and cold –

when roads have been clogged

and winds have been strong

and some have struggled to keep warm.

Let the coldness of this season

raise the question

of our own spiritual temperatures.

Has our relationship to You been frozen and stiff?

Are the ways of our hearts clogged by snowdrifts of apathy and indifference?

Do the lines of communication between us sag and break beneath the iciness of neglect or doubt?

Send now a warming trend into our lives.

Let there be a melting of our hearts,

and a surrender to Your will and Your Way.

Grant that the icicles of pride and loneliness

may fall from our hearts,

and that the heat of Your love and grace

may break up the ice floes that have kept us apart.

Transform us into centers of warmth

that will radiate Your presence

into the cold-hearted world around us.

Show us how to be Your light,

like the warmth of the sun, warming the earth.

Grant peace to those who are anxious

and renewal to those who are tired.

Instill in our nation a longing

and a desire for the common good.

Grow in us a desire to do the good we can

for those you place on our hearts,

for those Intermountain serves and the children, youth

and families seeking hope and healing.

Let Christ come and touch us now

so that all our problems may be small ones,

dwarfed in the magnitude and beauty

of His presence.

For in Christ there is no coldness,

but eternal springtime. Amen.”

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