Each prayer is lovingly composed by one of our pastors here at Nassau Presbyterian Church, offering a moment of calm amid life’s busyness. We invite you to pause, breathe, and lift your heart as you read the words shared each week. May these prayers inspire deeper faith, strengthen community bonds, and remind us that we journey together under the care of God’s ever-present love. Follow “Nassau Church” on Facebook or Instagram to be alerted when new prayers are posted.
Prayers of the People for Easter Sunday, April 20, 2025
Great God Almighty, God of life, abundant and eternal, God of resurrection power, God of death conquering hope. God of darkness shattering light, God of healing, reconciling love, God of sin stomping forgiveness, God who makes all things new, Great God Almighty….we thank you this Easter morning for the resurrection of Jesus Christ, for his rising from the tomb, for his life-giving victory over the powers and principalities of this world, for his promised presence in the lives of all who would follow him, his presence even to the end of the age. We praise you, everlasting Lord for the Risen Christ, for Thine is the glory.
Unleash the mystery of the resurrection among us, Holy God. Transform us be your Easter people. In your Holy Spirit, inspire us to be witnesses to the presence of the Risen Christ among us. Confirm in us, the assurance of his presence with us, here amid our brokenness, amid the world’s ever-present darkness, and despite the unrelenting tyranny of death. As Christ himself taught us, empower us by your grace to see his face in the hungry, the stranger, the oppressed. To see Christ in the face of the immigrant, the most vulnerable, the other. With your wisdom God, lead us along a life-giving, kingdom building pathway of justice and righteousness and peace. We praise you, everlasting Lord for the Risen Christ, for Thine is the glory.
Recast the power of the resurrection in all the world, Loving God. That your promise of doing a new thing in creation, that the divine beauty of a new heaven and a new earth might break upon the world as fresh and certain as the dawn of a new day, that humanity might find the will and the way to help turn creation’s moan to a glad shout, that the cry of those with so little who suffer because of the decisions and actions of those who have so much might be turn to dance of joy, that the nations posturing for power might be turned to positions that serve the good of all your children everywhere. We praise you, everlasting Lord for the Risen Christ, for Thine is the glory.
Refresh the promise of the resurrection in each of our lives, O God of saving grace. Take the hearts that are heavy with grief and wrap them with a sense of eternity deep within. Take the minds that are wrought with anxiety and anoint them again with the peace that passes understanding. Take the bodies that are broken, or battling, or worn, and pour out a healing so far beyond words and a comfort so beyond imagination. Take those who find themselves walking in darkness and rekindle the assurance of your light, a light that comes by the magnitude of your mercy and the daring resurrection promise of your presence with us. As we come to the end of this Holy Week in what feels like such an unholy world, we humbly and urgently beseech you to help us amid the ordinariness of our lives to cling to the unbelievably sacred hope we have in the Risen Jesus. We praise you, everlasting Lord for the Risen Christ, for Thine is the glory.
Copyright © 2025 by David A. Davis
This prayer may be used in worship services, with appropriate attribution, but may not be reproduced for commercial purposes without permission. For permission requests, contact Nassau Presbyterian Church, Princeton, NJ, (609-924-0103, email).
Prayers of the People for April 13, 2025
The church responds to the Gospel of reconciliation
in praise and prayer.
With open hearts, let us bring our prayers to God.
Let us pray.
Merciful Lord, in you is more tenderness
than we can fathom and more blessing than we can measure.
You have given yourself to us.
You meet us where we are.
You love us as we are.
We are delighted to live with you in this day
and are thankful for your compassion and for your
lessons which guide us into maturity in faith and living.
You grant us sustenance through bread and cup;
sustaining us through the waters of baptism –
blessing our bodies and strengthening our hearts.
Thank you for never leaving our side.
Our hearts are full of many things today:
joyfulness and contentment;
discomfort and disappointment;
bereavement and melancholy.
The journey through these days can be
marred by doubt and despair.
We are often exhausted
With too much to do and feel;
too many people to take care of; too many to pray for.
Some of us need recovery, some mending;
Some reassurance, some need encouragement.
We all need hope.
So we come before you, bow before you,
asking you to consider our prayers,
and grant us what we need for living in these days.
We pray for our country.
We pray for restoration of the common good.
Revitalize us with the values of faith; that we would seek
justice, uprightness, empathy,
mercy, honesty, and harmony.
Help us to be neighbors and citizens
who rejoice in human dignity.
Help us in this Holy Week ahead,
the Holy Week that starts right now,
not to abandon and turn from our Lord,
but to be filled with courage even in our fear.
Speak tenderly to our O Lord.
Hearken to us.
Enfold us.
Repair us.
And with Isaiah we proclaim, O Lord,
You are the stability of our times,
the abundance of our living and loving,
and that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom
and the establishment of knowledge.
United as the Body of Christ,
we lift these prayers to you.
Hear us now,
as we pray the prayer Christ taught us,
in the version and language closest to
our hearts, praying,
Our Father, who art in heaven,
hallowed be thy Name,
thy kingdom come,
thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.
For thine is the kingdom and the power
and the glory forever and ever.
Amen.
Copyright © 2025 by Lauren J. McFeaters
This prayer may be used in worship services, with appropriate attribution, but may not be reproduced for commercial purposes without permission. For permission requests, contact Nassau Presbyterian Church, Princeton, NJ, (609-924-0103, email).
Prayers of the People for April 5, 2025
Holy and Everlasting Lord, you are our light and our salvation, whom shall we fear? You are the stronghold of our lives, of whom shall we be afraid?
We praise you. We thank you. We live for you, O God. With gratitude for your gift of life and breath to each one of us, with gratitude for our salvation in Christ Jesus, your overflowing love at work within us, and for the work of your Spirit which gives us confidence, and strength, and peace, Almighty God we lift our hearts before you.
Claiming your promise that our Savior intercedes for us, and the Spirit groans for us, when words can’t be found, we humbly ask that you hear our prayers. We pray, O Lord of All, for your creation, for the world that you have made, for your will and your grace and your light to abound in the deepest and widest of ways. That the powers of the present darkness would be brought to nothing by your light. That all that works to undercut your coming kingdom would be baffled by your wisdom. That salvation history would be fulfilled in a harvest of your righteousness.
Confident of your peace that passes all understanding, the peace we know in Christ that isn’t the same as that which the world gives, and remembering that we can do all things through Christ who strengthens us, we pray for all who mourn, those for whom grief is so very fresh and those from whom the grief lingers. We pray for all who seek a peace of mind and a fresh calm to get through the night or start the day. We pray for those impacted by rains and floods in the middle of the country. We pray for far off places riddled by war, violence, and lack of aid for food, water, and medicine. We pray for those whose lives and livelihoods have been upended even threatened by the chaos of these days. Anoint all of us a fresh with your peace O God.
Yearning to live into the charge that everything we do, we do in the name of Jesus Christ and for his glory, we pray for the resurrection witness of our lives. Enable us to be faithful in the little things, to honor you with the biggest things. Help us to see you are work in and through us as we move through the day, an greet the person we pass on the sidewalk, and make a new friend, and share a hard conversation with loved one, and disagree with a co-worker. So inspire us to practice the presence of the Risen Christ, to attend to the holiness of our lives, to seek to magnify
our witness to your death conquering, life giving, life sustaining presence in the ordinary movements, the regular words, the almost mindless actions of everyday.
Believing that we have been saved by grace through faith alone, and a bit humbled hat you have called each one of us here to the Body of Christ which is Nassau Presbyterian Church, some from around the world, some online in another state, some here this morning for the first time, others for a season, for still others for a lifetime, we lay before you our life together. Flame the passion of our worship life. Deepen our efforts to grow and learn and be your disciples. Strengthen and inspire our ministries of advocacy and care and service. Humble us and encourage us when it comes to legacy now handed to us and we might hand it on others. Bind us together in your love. And preserve, Oh holy One, the peace, the unity and the purity of this your church.
All of this we ask, as we would live, in the precious name of Jesus
Copyright © 2025 by David A. Davis
This prayer may be used in worship services, with appropriate attribution, but may not be reproduced for commercial purposes without permission. For permission requests, contact Nassau Presbyterian Church, Princeton, NJ, (609-924-0103, email).
Prayers of the People for April 5, 2025
The World Beloved: A Bluegrass Mass
Great God Almighty, our Balm in Gilead, our ever present help in times of trouble, our Rock and our Redeemer, you have breathed life into each one of us and shaped us as instruments of your praise. You nest within our being a restlessness so that we only find rest in you. You have placed within our hearts a God-shape vacuum that can only be filled by you. And so come, O God and help us again. Come, Lord Jesus, give us rest again. Come, Holy Spirit, fill us again. For you and you alone are worthy of our praise, the devotion of our lives, and the longing of our hearts
This evening we give you thanks for this gift of beauty offered by all the musicians and choir members in our midst. We give you thanks for the worship life of Nassau Presbyterian Church. We are humble that in our worship you come all the way down to us even as we find ourselves lifted up to you. We praise you for your creation and our place in it, your so very good creation. Indeed your world beloved. Each of us, one of your beloved.
We praise you and by your tender mercy, we ask that you hear our prayers. Yes, our prayers for your creation which groans and yearns for its own redemption in you. We lament creations suffering and humanity’s lack of care in tending to creation. Humanity’s inability to honor the godly relationship to creation you intended.
Loving God, hear our prayers for all that weighs so heavily on our hearts. Powerful and loving God, we pray, as we always do, for this whole wide world so marred and broken. In the work of your Spirit blowing in the land and that same spirit inspiring the lives of all your people, so transform nations and leaders and each one of us, to have the will to shape a world more and more like your kingdom come.
Everlasting and ever-present Lord, we open our hearts before you with all that we have brought with us today. With the urgency of the psalmist, we call for your help right now. For the most vulnerable near and far, the ones Jesus called the least of these who find their lives, their very existence threatened by the decisions and actions of the powers and principalities. We pray for loved ones and friends who are sick, for those we know who have hearts broken with grief and loss, for people in our lives struggling for a sense of calm, peace, and joy, for family members in crisis. With both a sigh of the soul and shaking fist lifted to heaven, hear our prayer, O God. Yet, like the psalmist, may our prayers also be bathed in tears of gratitude for all the ways you lift us, strengthen us, comfort us. May our prayers, even the most urgent, come with the confidence and assurance of your presence, your love, and your mercy. Give us the eyes to see you at work in the best times of life’s joys and celebrations. And give us the strength of heart to know that indeed, you are there with us, holding us, in the shakiest moments too.
Here in this world you love so dear,
Come on down, come on down, come on down.
Copyright © 2025 by David A. Davis
This prayer may be used in worship services, with appropriate attribution, but may not be reproduced for commercial purposes without permission. For permission requests, contact Nassau Presbyterian Church, Princeton, NJ, (609-924-0103, email).
Prayers of the People for March 30, 2025
Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock and the door will be opened for you.
You alone are God. By the work of your Spirit, you call us, inspire us, move us to seek you, O God. In Christ Jesus we behold your power and glory. Your power revealed in his cross. Your glory made known in his love. Because your love is better than life, our lips shall praise you.
The world continues to shake, literally and metaphorically, Mighty God. Nations wobble and rage and lash out. Your people suffer, O God, amid violence, or oppressive leaders, or war, or the tyranny of poverty, or in the aftermath of unimaginable destruction from earthquake. We are asking, we are seeking, we are knocking this morning, Lord.
We pray for the world, and we pray for peace among nations, for an outburst of compassion and mercy among world leaders, for all who suffer this day…in Myamar/Burma, in Ukraine, in Beirut, for all the peoples of the middle east and north Africa, for far off places we name now in silence, knowing that the world to you, O God, is such a small place. We are asking, we are seeking, we are knocking this morning, Lord.
Holy One, You have called us here this morning….so many other places to be, so many other things to do, yet you have called us here to claim us a fresh as your people, you have brought us here that we might hear again of your promise to provide, that we might hear again of the community of faith you intend for your Beloved, that we might hear again of your gospel, that we know afresh of your love, for we are the Body of Christ, entrusted with his ministry to one another, to the community, to the world. So, we pray for each other, for visitors, for life long members, for the youngest and the oldest, for those who rejoice and for those who weep, we pray for the mission, the witness, the testimony of Nassau Presbyterian Church. We are asking, we are seeking, we are knocking this morning, Lord.
We can’t leave here, Loving God, without opening our hearts, baring our souls, to you and you alone. So we name before you the deepest concerns, the burdens that weigh heavy, the anxieties that keep us from a restful sleep….for aging parents, for a friend who is grieving, for high school seniors up to their eyeballs in what comes next, for those we love who are sick, for civil servants in the federal government, for the overwhelmed and the anxious, and yes for the hungry and the poor and the vulnerable and the immigrant. We are asking, we are seeking, we are knocking this morning, Lord.
Copyright © 2025 by David A. Davis
This prayer may be used in worship services, with appropriate attribution, but may not be reproduced for commercial purposes without permission. For permission requests, contact Nassau Presbyterian Church, Princeton, NJ, (609-924-0103, email).
Prayers of the People for March 23, 2025
Holy Creator,
We look around our world and see brokenness,
and as we explore the stories of Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel this week,
they reflect the messiness, mistakes, and pain that humanity continues to experience and cause.
Thank you for your steadfast love and justice,
for your tenderness that clothes us,
for your willingness to send your son to walk with us on this earth.
Thank you for creating us as co-sustainers with the land,
providing food to eat, water to drink, and resources to shelter us.
Help us reform systems in care for our neighbors.
Give us ears to hear as you did when the ground cries out.
Move us to support the wellbeing of our entire community.
This morning, we are particularly mindful of places and peoples in need of peace and humanitarian aid. We pray for Gaza and the West Bank. We pray against antisemitism and islamophobia. We pray for the freedom and welfare of all people. We pray for the Congo and Ukraine. We remember that the tree of life shows up again in Revelation and promises that the leaves of the tree will be for the healing of the nations. We pray for that healing to begin now and that you would empower us to be a part of it.
Tender God,
we lift up those who are close to our hearts who are ill and preparing for medical procedures or the conclusion of treatments.
Be with them and surround them with comfort.
We pray too for those in recovery.
Be with all who are grieving or lonely.
We are mindful of our immigrant neighbors, who live in fear, help us welcome the stranger.
We pray for educators, school administrators, support staff, and students, in the midst of so much uncertainty strengthen them and give them space to rest.
Mighty Spirit,
continue to move with the dust,
so that whether we find ourselves stuck in the mud or cultivating fertile topsoil,
there is still the potential for you to meet us there and fill us with the breath of God.
Give us courage and compassion as we encounter the sacred and the mundane in our weeks that we may always follow your call to do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with you.
Hear us now as we pray the prayer Jesus taught us, in the language and version closest to our hearts, saying,
Our Father, who art in heaven,
hallowed be thy name.
Thy Kingdom come,
thy will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread,
and forgive us our debts,
as we forgive our debtors.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.
For thine is the Kingdom, and the power, and the glory forever. Amen.
Copyright © 2025 by Len Scales
This prayer may be used in worship services, with appropriate attribution, but may not be reproduced for commercial purposes without permission. For permission requests, contact Nassau Presbyterian Church, Princeton, NJ, (609-924-0103, email).
Prayers of the People for March 16, 2025
~ Youth Sunday ~
Dear Lord,
It can be so hard to feel complete sometimes. Again and again, everything seems perfect to everyone else, but inside we still feel like there is something missing. Sometimes we’re not looking for it hard enough, other times we’re looking too hard for it. Help us to stop looking and instead to listen for your voice in those around us, the opportunities we get, the words we read, and the emotions we feel.
Lord, help those in our community who deal with depression, anxiety, grief as a result of violent crime and domestic violence to listen for the thought, person, or thing that can console them. Keep all the world’s minds open to your signs, your little shoves out the door, from everyday people to those who have command over our towns, nations, and global alliances, so that we may have peace and happiness worldwide.
Help us hear your words and use the gifts you gave us humans so many, many, many years ago to find our missing pieces, and help others find theirs, just like God used Adam himself to create his mission piece in the person of Eve.
Amen.
Copyright © 2025 by the Youth of Nassau Presbyterian Church
This prayer may be used in worship services, with appropriate attribution, but may not be reproduced for commercial purposes without permission. For permission requests, contact Nassau Presbyterian Church, Princeton, NJ, (609-924-0103, email).
Pastoral Prayer for March 9, 2025
~ Lent 1: Communion Sunday ~
As we have been nurtured by word and sacrament this day, we express our gratitude to God, and we know ourselves to be sent by God out into the world.
God of all creation, Thank you for feeding us with what grows from the earth. Fill us with your spirit and unite us as your body in the world, that we may answer your call to do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with you. Amen.
Copyright © 2025 by Len Scales
This prayer may be used in worship services, with appropriate attribution, but may not be reproduced for commercial purposes without permission. For permission requests, contact Nassau Presbyterian Church, Princeton, NJ, (609-924-0103, email).
Prayers of the People for March 2, 2025
~ Transfiguration Sunday ~
O Holy and Blessed One,
you take us by hand and led us to the mountain top,
the place where the earth kisses the clouds,
the ground touches your heaven.
Your mountain top is a place of pledges,
and gifts, and haze, and fog.
Thank you for giving us a place of covenants and conversations,
a place of to the place of hearing and listening.
God of promise,
you take us by the hand as we travel into the valleys.
You who are the Good Shepherd, faithful and true,
you who never leave us alone but guide and move us.
We thank you and we love you.
Give us each your courage and determination to
serve your world with justice and love.
Lord of Mercy,
we pray for those in North Carolina and South Carolina
affected by brutal brush fires.
Be with all being evacuated and finding refuge.
Be close to all who rescue and protect.
Be with houses of worship as doors are open for care and refuge.
We pray for our world.
We pray diligently for those in danger,
those in Ethiopia, the region of Gaza, and Mali.
We ask your complete and utter protection
for those in harm’s way.
We pray for Ukraine and for our dear friends from the
Ukrainian Catholic Church, the Stradch Church in the LeViv.
We pray for Father Peitro, the staff,
and for their ministry with refugees,
offering shelter, food programs, and medical care.
Keep them safe.
Keep them secure.
We pray for our country.
Our country so glorious and so beautiful,
but a country ravaged by cruelty.
Be for us a port in a storm
where there is recklessness and irresponsibility.
Give us sanity O God and vision to take action steeped in
your grace – always merciful, always generous.
And once again, with your blessing and compassion,
silence any voice but your own –
for you are
the King of Kings
the Lord of Lords.
You are our Alleluia – Forever and Ever.
And with Isaiah we proclaim,
O Lord, you are exalted,
and you fill the world with justice and righteousness;
you are the stability of our times,
the abundance of our living and loving,
and that the fear of and discipline in the Lord
is the beginning of wisdom and knowledge.
United as the Body of Christ,
we lift all our prayers to you.
Hear us now,
as we pray the prayer Christ etched upon our souls.
We pray in the version and language closest to
our hearts, praying,
Our Father, who art in heaven,
hallowed be thy Name,
thy kingdom come,
thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.
For thine is the kingdom and the power
and the glory forever.
Amen.
Copyright © 2025 by Lauren J. McFeaters
This prayer may be used in worship services, with appropriate attribution, but may not be reproduced for commercial purposes without permission. For permission requests, contact Nassau Presbyterian Church, Princeton, NJ, (609-924-0103, email).
Prayers of the People for February 23, 2025
Let us come to God in prayer, let us pray:
Holy One, our Beginning and End,
our Alpha and Omega, Ancient of Days,
Living and Loving God of Justice.
You are Magnificent and Splendid.
You sustain and challenge us.
In you, we find gifts and surprises,
revelations and amazements.
May the songs we sing, the prayers we pray,
the affirmations we declare,
and the confessions we reveal,
be before you, a testament and a witness to
your loving Word proclaimed,
and may we honor you
with lives lived always for you.
We confess that in the pursuit of
our own dreams and desires,
we have not always been civil,
not always humane, not always respectful.
Guided by your Spirit,
we ask for the wisdom and strength to be
brave in these days of foolishness,
and to stop at nothing to speak truth to power.
We give you glory and devotion,
and we pray your Spirit continue to
shape us, form and reform us,
with fresh winds of compassion and concern.
Hold us close,
like the mother hen
who covers her chicks under her wing,
so we know we belong to you,
you to us – we are yours forever.
We ask your mercy for all who are in the hospital,
Those recovering from surgery,
All those who need your power and strength.
God of mercy,
we call upon you to protect the vulnerable and the poor;
the immigrant and the impoverished.
As we face malicious and unprecedented divisiveness,
meant to tear down communities from every side,
meant to erode medical care and research,
meant as retribution and vengeance,
be our strong wisdom, make our voices clear,
our bodies ready for the long difficult road ahead,
our souls resilient and robust.
Remind us that hope, and action
cannot ever be extinguished,
and your covenant of grace can never be vanquished.
We pray for Ethiopia, Ukraine, Mali, Gaza,
and ask your complete and utter protection
for those in harm’s way.
Surround all people in danger,
children and youth at risk,
the most vulnerable among us in peril,
the most exposed in jeopardy,
refugees and migrants who are threatened,
and with your mercy
silence any voice but your own – for you are
the King of Kings
the Lord of Lords.
the Prince of Peace –
you are our Alleluia –
Forever and Ever.
For you, the Lord, are exalted,
and you fill the world with
justice and righteousness;
You are the Lord are the stability of our times,
and with abundance of our living and loving God,
we proclaim with the prophets,
that the fear of the Lord
is the beginning of wisdom and knowledge.
United as the Body of Christ,
we lift these prayers to you.
Hear us now,
as we pray the prayer Christ taught us,
in the version and language closest to
our hearts, praying,
Our Father, who art in heaven,
hallowed be thy Name,
thy kingdom come,
thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.
For thine is the kingdom and the power
and the glory forever.
Amen.
Copyright © 2025 by Lauren J. McFeaters
This prayer may be used in worship services, with appropriate attribution, but may not be reproduced for commercial purposes without permission. For permission requests, contact Nassau Presbyterian Church, Princeton, NJ, (609-924-0103, email).
Prayers of the People for February 16, 2025
Holy God, Merciful Lord, Author of Salvation, Giver of Grace, Creator of All, Ever-Present Spirit of Life; Mighty God, our Savior; with the wonder and awe in our hearts, and thanksgiving and gratitude on lips, and with the dedication and commitment of our lives, we offer to you our praise and adoration. Your love for us awakens us every morning. The newness of your grace jolts us like the crisp, cold morning air on our face. Your faithfulness is sure, constant, sturdier than the grandest of mountains.
Mighty God, hear our prayers this morning; our prayers for your Church’s life, its mission, its witness throughout your creation. The Church Universal. So, empower the Church to give voice to and to live the Gospel of Jesus Christ. In the power of your Spirit, inspire the church to proclaim in word and deed that your kingdom belongs first to the poor, that the hungry shall be filled, that those who weep will be able to laugh. When today’s disciples of your Son are hated, persecuted, ridiculed, for seeking to be faithful to your call for justice and mercy and kindness and love, let them in their resistance know profound joy that shines even in the world’s darkness
Creator God, hear our prayers for this nation, for the breadth of our culture, the multitudes of people, for young and for old, for rich and for poor, for leaders and for followers. Where there is hatred, bitterness, greed and obsessive selfishness, sow seeds of your more excellent way. Where there is intention to divide, cause unrest and bring chaos, sow seeds of unity, determination, and calm. Where the fears are real: for women’s healthcare, for immigrant safety, for rights of vulnerable people and minority communities being crushed, sow seeds of advocacy among those with power and privilege. Sow seeds, so that the smallest acts of gospel faithfulness might grow to be trees planted by streams of your living water; transforming the powers and principalities even if little by little. Help us to see the seeds that we might have hope and only by your grace, help us to be the seeds that grow and live to your glory not our own,
Loving God of all the earth, hear our prayers for the world; for places destroyed by the violence of war, for nations all stirred up in political turmoil, for parts of the world where devastation is a way of life, and the rubble of destruction never goes away. We pray especially this morning for Ukraine, the region of Gaza , for the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and for so many other places in your world. Pour out your Spirit upon all the earth, O God, and raise up people who have a will to work for and a voice to cry out for, and the vision see a world where justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like an ever flowing stream.
O God of wonder and grace, we pray for one another this morning, for tender hearts, for broken bodies, for anxious minds, for heavily burdened spirits…so anoint us, even this very moment, Lord God, that we might know the comfort, the healing, the transformation, and the vision that comes from you, knowing that as we find our rest in you, our best days are forever yet to come.
Copyright © 2025 by David A. Davis
This prayer may be used in worship services, with appropriate attribution, but may not be reproduced for commercial purposes without permission. For permission requests, contact Nassau Presbyterian Church, Princeton, NJ, (609-924-0103, email).
Prayers of the People for February 9, 2025
Almighty and Holy God, your love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given us. Precious Lord, each day we stand in the grace and the peace your have given us through our Lord Jesus Christ. God of steadfast love, we live to share your glory, a glory revealed to us in the life, death, resurrection of Jesus, a glory revealed in your everlasting faithfulness and abiding presence with us, a glory revealed in the sure and certain signs of your kingdom come, your will be done, a glory revealed, only by your grace, in the lives we offer in service to you, a glory revealed in the mercy, compassion, and steadfast love of your people. We praise and thank you, O Lord of life; life abundant, life eternal.
Gathered here in your name, called here by your Spirit, reconciled here through your Son, hear our prayer. Intercede for us with a sign much deeper than words, a groan that rattles creation. Don’t just lift our prayers to highest heavens but come all the way down, Holy God so that you can hear the ones we can barely whisper. Anoint these our prayers, so that even in our asking, we find ourselves drawing ever nearer to you.
We pray for the world this morning, for your children anywhere who suffer and lack the most basic needs for life. We pray for people who suffer at the hands of others, or who live in fear, or who rise to meet the day amid the violence and destruction of war, terror, disaster. We pray for this nation, O God. Amid the barrage of orders, announcements, and actions, we pray for federal employees, for those serving the country overseas, for those whose fear is real and whose future is so uncertain. And we pray for the most vulnerable, the nameless refugees, the hidden immigrants, the queer and trans community, the religiously persecuted, the multitudes of orphans and children on the wrong end of cuts to foreign aid. Bring peace and a vision of your kingdom throughout the world and to this nation and hear our prayer Mighty God.
We lift to you those who are grieving today, some here, some far away, and the sick and dying, for any facing surgery, or waiting for tests. For all who are weary and carry heavy burdens, for those struggling with addictions and fighting to stay sober, for all who yearn for a peace of mind and joyful heart. Hear our prayer, Holy God.
And we pray for our congregation, for the ministry and witness of Nassau Presbyterian Church, for our life here in worship where we know ourselves to be stamped as the body of Christ, for our feeble efforts to somehow reflect the welcome of Christ himself in our fellowship, for our yearning to be the hands of Christ in mission and outreach, for the sacred ways in which you move among us, making the ordinary parts of a our life together so extraordinarily holy. Only you can give the growth, Wondrous God; in your mercy, inspires us to an extraordinary Christlike love, so that we can bear the harvest as your field, stand strong with you as our foundation, and be holy as your temple. All of it together. Hear our prayer, Living God.
Copyright © 2025 by David A. Davis
This prayer may be used in worship services, with appropriate attribution, but may not be reproduced for commercial purposes without permission. For permission requests, contact Nassau Presbyterian Church, Princeton, NJ, (609-924-0103, email).