United people
(O, Lord,) I am your servant, so please have mercy on me and answer the prayer that I make day and night for these people of Israel who serve you. ~ Nehemiah 1:6 (CEV)
Jesus prayed: Holy Father, keep them safe by the power of your name. It is the name you gave me. Keep them safe so they can be one, just as you and I are one. ~ John 17:11b (NIRV)
Holy Father,
THANKS: I'm grateful that you want to include your people in your plan. Even if you have to show mercy on us you still work hard to include us and make us one with you.
REGRETS: Your agenda is to make us one but my agenda often involves setting myself apart from the rest. I want to prove that I'm better. My focus is all wrong.
INTERCESSION: So please use your power to save me from that kind of thinking and amibtion.
PURPOSE: I want to be as passionate as you are about unity with you and the others.
Amen.
*ABOUT THE
DAILY TEXTS
The Daily Texts have been published by the Moravian Church since 1731. In 2015 I started posting these Bible verses for my spiritual formation students at Pacific Islands University. In the process of responding to the verses, I found the rhythm of looking for a common thread and writing a prayer based on that key idea to be helpful for my own soul. The prayers are more or less modeled on the TRIP method, which is what I ask my students to do in their journaling. ~ Brad Boydston
TRANSLATIONS
ABP = Authorized Boydston Paraphrase -- a freestyle biblical adaptation -- somewhere between paraphrase, commentary, and sermon
CEB = Common English Bible (©2011, the Common English Bible)
CEV = Contemporary English Version (©1995, American Bible Society)
MSG = The Message (©1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002 by Eugene H. Peterson)
NIRV = New International Reader's Version (©1996, 1998, Biblica)
NIV = New International Version (©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011, Biblica)
NLT = New Living Translation (©1996, 2004, 2007, 2013, Tyndale House Foundation)
