Let’s Pray Together: Advent, part 2 of 4

Merciful God,

you sent your messengers the prophets

to preach repentance and prepare the way for our salvation.

Give us grace to heed their warnings and forsake our sins,

that we may celebrate aright the commemoration of the nativity,

and may await with joy the coming in glory of Jesus Christ our Redeemer,

who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,

One God, forever and ever.  Amen.

 — #201 in The United Methodist Hymnal

“Repentance.”

Don’t hear that word much any more.

We know what it means, but it’s usually someone else who needs to repent, not us.

Not so in this prayer: “Give us grace to heed their warnings and forsake our sins” is painfully clear in its use of the first person plural.

We are the ones who need God’s grace.

They are “our sins.”

Moreover, we’re the ones who need to turn away from “our sins.”

We do need to change some things, and quickly.

And suddenly this little prayer for Advent has become a call to action.

What “warnings” will you “heed” today, and what “sins” will you “forsake?”

Please keep me in your prayers; God still has a lotta work to do in me.

Maybe in you, too?