#praywithusPUMC to End Racism Prayer Guide 5

 

DAILY PRAYER TO END RACISM

DAY FIVE

DAY OF MATURITY – HANDS & FEET                                             

  • God’s Word for Today 

John 4:15 

Jesus Talks With a Samaritan Woman

15 The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.”

  • Reflection

At the end of the healing process, if we don’t want to get ill again, we need to make the change that we want to see in our life. In this scripture passage, we can see that it is important to ask for what we need. The Samaritan woman is asking Jesus to give her the living water and only once she is asking Him, He can give it to her. In this day of Prayer Vigil, we are focusing on our needs, to understand exactly what we are requesting in our lives and for the world. God is hearing us. God will embrace all our needs and requests. By understanding what we really need in order to end racism and to create the real community of all living creatures together, we will be able to receive the right guidance for our Hands and Feet to make it happen. 

Recall that Jews and Samaritans were two ethnic-cultural groups who did not mingle with one another. And yet here, they come together through service. Jesus asks, “will you give me a drink?” And African-Americans are asking, “will you let me breathe?” It is through compassionate service for each other that the two communities can become family.

Let’s take this day to put the light on what is going on in our country as much as what is going on in ourselves from the action perspective. 

  • Prayer and contemplation

What do you really need and how can you ask for it to benefit all involved?

What do you/we need to do in order to end racism, racial tensions, and racial inequalities?

What new direction can you/we decide to follow and how can we make it happen?

How can you/we make sure to commit to the new resolutions taken?

How do you hold yourself accountable in the long run?

We invite you to light a candle, take a cross or a bible, and go simply in a calm space and start breathing for a few seconds.

Shine the light on the things that you need, on the things that you want to change or to be changed. Shine the light on the action you want to take and sustain.

Ask God to support you in your pain and towards happiness.

Ask the Holy Spirit to heal you and everyone.

Ask the Son, Christ, to be with us and in us so we can not only believe, not only follow but abide.

Together we pray.

We believe there is a way to put the human first and not his/her appearance. There is a way to see love, God, and Jesus in each of us and all around us. We pray for not falling into the trap of division, of nurturing separation amongst humans, of playing the game of destruction that darkness wants us to play by forcing us to choose one side of the battlefield whereas Jesus taught us that there is a way out of the battlefield, a third way, a universal solution, which is the one of reconciliation with God and with one another, the one of the Living Church that is the one human family, where the Holy Spirit is always dwelling, nurturing and bringing us out of the division, towards reconciliation and unity, above and beyond all forms. We believe that today is a day when all of humanity will come together, be reconciled, and love each other in one universal community of humans and of all living creatures, under the banner of unconditional love and altruism.

Let’s end racism, once and for all.                                        

One human family, in God.                                      

Click here for the Prayer Guide Introduction

 

 

 

Posted by Isabella Dougan