Thursday Prayer: the blessings we wish for

Dear God
Sometimes I wish
you were in the business
of giving the kind of blessings
that would protect us from
the vulnerability of being human.

No more painful emotions,
no more suffering,
no more conflict,
no more prejudice.

I hear your promise of salvation,
that there will be no more crying,
no more death,
a new heavens and a new earth

and I want that to be not a promise
that you resource us to work at
and live into
but some kind of magic.
Instant magic.

Instead God,
we are living in a world
where our friends die,
and the innocent suffer,
and bullies seem to win,
and the bad behaviour
goes on and on.

And I feel the temptation
to wrestle you for a blessing,
though by wrestle
I really mean
be on my very best behaviour
to try and convince you
that you should magic us up a better world.

Dear God,
by your Spirit
be at work in me
to shape my desires,
to strengthen my will,
to guide my feet.

So that I might walk in your ways
and know your presence with me

As you invite me
to be a co-conspirator
in your reign of peace and justice
coming on earth.
Amen.

Jemma Allen is a priest in the Anglican Church in Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia and expresses that ministry as a researcher, counsellor and spiritual director.

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