Lord, I don’t think you will love me more if I pray. You could not love me more than You do. I do not expect you to change the trajectory of my company because I ask You. I do not assume that You will change the order of nature. When the psalmist says, “Prosper the work of our hands for us, Prosper the work of our hands.” PS 90:17, this poet is not expecting to sit back and have things turn around. The psalmist expects to work at it.
I pray because when I’m connected to You, the Creator of All, I’m more connected to my authentic self. When I am connected to you, I’m connected better empathetically to other people regardless of their religious affiliation or secularity.
Folks ask, “why would an executive pray?” Most executives are very self-confident, at least outwardly. But I know from my interactions that they struggle with lots of things and being authentic is one of them.
So when I use the psalmist words, “Prosper the work of our hands,” I feel that you created us to use our hands and be and feel successful. As our Creator, you keep us in being, so that we can do what we were created to do. I believe that I, Lord, along with every other person, have been created to do something good and unique for Your creation, for Your people. Help me to see what that is. Help me to self-correct and be corrected so that I maintain that authenticity. If I do, will it not be best for me and for others?
Section 2, Scripture: Ps 1391-14; John 17:1-26
| Hebrew Scripture | New Testament |
| O Lord, you have searched me and known me! 2 You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from afar. 3 You search out my path and my lying down and are acquainted with all my ways. 4 Even before a word is on my tongue, behold, O Lord, you know it altogether. 5 You hem me in, behind and before, and lay your hand upon me. 6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high; I cannot attain it.7 Where shall I go from your Spirit? Or where shall I flee from your presence? 8 If I ascend to heaven, you are there! If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there! 9 If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, 10 even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me. 11 If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me, and the light about me be night,” 12 even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is bright as the day, for darkness is as light with you.13 For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. 14 I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.[a] Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well. Psalm 139:1ff
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Prayer of Jesus
When Jesus had said this, he raised his eyes to heaven* and said, “Father, the hour has come. Give glory to your son, so that your son may glorify you, 2 just as you gave him authority over all people, so that he may give eternal life to all you gave him.3 Now this is eternal life, that they should know you, the only true God, and the one whom you sent, Jesus Christ.4 I glorified you on earth by accomplishing the work that you gave me to do.5 Now glorify me, Father, with you, with the glory that I had with you before the world began. 6 “I revealed your name to those whom you gave me out of the world. They belonged to you, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. 7 Now they know that everything you gave me is from you, 8 because the words you gave to me I have given to them, and they accepted them and truly understood that I came from you, and they have believed that you sent me. 9 I pray for them. I do not pray for the world but for the ones you have given me, because they are yours, 10 and everything of mine is yours and everything of yours is mine, and I have been glorified in them. 11 And now I will no longer be in the world, but they are in the world, while I am coming to you. Holy Father, keep them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one just as we are. 12 When I was with them I protected them in your name that you gave me, and I guarded them, and none of them was lost except the son of destruction, in order that the scripture might be fulfilled. 13 But now I am coming to you. I speak this in the world so that they may share my joy completely. 14 I gave them your word, and the world hated them, because they do not belong to the world any more than I belong to the world. 15 I do not ask that you take them out of the world but that you keep them from the evil one. 16 They do not belong to the world any more than I belong to the world. 17 Consecrate them in the truth. Your word is truth. 18 As you sent me into the world, so I sent them into the world. 19 And I consecrate myself for them, so that they also may be consecrated in truth. 20 “I pray not only for them, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, 21 so that they may all be one, as you, Father, are in me and I in you, that they also may be in us, that the world may believe that you sent me. 22 And I have given them the glory you gave me, so that they may be one, as we are one, 23 I in them and you in me, that they may be brought to perfection as one, that the world may know that you sent me, and that you loved them even as you loved me.24 Father, they are your gift to me. I wish that where I am they also may be with me, that they may see my glory that you gave me, because you loved me before the foundation of the world. 25 Righteous Father, the world also does not know you, but I know you, and they know that you sent me. 26 I made known to them your name and I will make it known, that the love with which you loved me may be in them and I in them.” John 17:1-26
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Again, with the psalmist, I give you thanks that I am fearfully wonderfully made, help me stick to that authenticity.
Section 3
You may wish to be silent for a few minutes.
Section 4
In your own words, thoughts, speak to God.