Father,
The world that You
created was a place that You blessed. In it You planted a Garden filled with
nourishing food, beautiful plants, friendly animals roaming about, and two
people who loved You and each other.
It was a place with
great beauty, a place with great promise, a place of great peace.
But then things went
wrong. Satan offered his lies, and he was believed. As a result, instead of
Your blessing there was Your curse. The first of our race fell from their
glorious positions as Lord and Lady of all. Along with them, all of creation
also fell into ugliness, despair, conflict.
And ever since,
humanity lives in a place filled with evil. We see the results every day.
- Confusion- Frustrations- Schemes- Doubts- Fear- Lies- Suspicions- Quarrels
We see these sorts
of things all around us and, all too often, within us, too. What was once
wonderful, that is, full of wonder, has become something full of woe.
So, Father, we pray,
deliver us from evil. Deliver us from the ugliness, the broken relations, the
battles against Satan and his horde. Deliver us from the struggle, the pain,
the sadness. Deliver us from the frustration, the weariness, the memories. Deliver
us from the sin. Deliver us from evil.
It is so good to
know that You've already begun the process of delivering us. Jesus has come to
provide redemption, redemption for all of this. The Spirit is here to make that
real in our lives. We are grateful that we already have a taste of what is to come,
that we already have a taste of the beauty, the promise, the peace. And one day
the process of deliverance will come to its conclusion. Jesus will return. And
everything will be restored. Everything will be right again. We will live in a
renewed Garden of even greater beauty, broader promise, deeper peace.
So, we pray for the
grace to keep at it, to persevere in the work of following Jesus, to be the
means by which You change all of this, to be the means by which You complete
the process of delivering all things from evil.
And while we wait
and work, we also pray, Come, Lord Jesus. Amen.