Heavenly Father,
We sit in awe of you: God in three persons - Father, Son, Spirit - a being of relationship with yourself, and yet you open up your arms to welcome us into that eternal relationship. You have invited humans into relationship since the very beginning, you have continued extending invitations to us through promises, covenants, prophecies, through the incarnation of your Son Jesus as one of us, and through the indwelling of your Spirit within us every single day. What an amazing truth that is!
And because of your great love for this world and all the people in it, you've called us to offer that same invitation, to welcome people into our homes, our church, our communities, and our lives on your behalf. We haven't always been great at that, and we're sorry. We admit that we've turned our nose up at people sometimes - because of how they look, or how they sound, or even how they smell or how they make us feel. Sometimes we feel scared, sometimes we feel ashamed, sometimes we just don't feel like it because it's hard. And so we're so thankful to you that you give us the strength to be more like you, to be welcoming and inviting to anyone, and we're thankful to you for all the opportunities you give us to make new friendships, to build up existing ones, to be more loving to our family and friends and strangers alike.
And so we ask you tonight, Father, for the power of you in us to take away our fear and replace it with openness; to take away our shame and replace it with welcoming; to take away our tiredness and replace it with warmth. We pray that each step we take in the lives of the people around us might be a step alongside them and a step closer to you. We pray especially for those families that we have sent out into the world with that mission: to everyone on staff here, to everyone we support across Australia and across the world. Take away their fear and their shame and their tiredness too, and give them the openness and welcoming and warmth that we all need from you to hold out your invitation to all those around us.
And finally we pray for every single person who gets that invitation, that you will soften their hearts and help them to receive it. For blessed are those who are invited to the wedding supper of the Lamb! These are the true words of God. And in your name we pray, Amen
