This is a prayer from a family
in our neighborhood.
A Little Village
Neighbor’s Prayer
Lord Jesus, You have brought my
family and me to this neighborhood.
I pray that our home in Little
Village become much more than a dwelling.
My prayer is that our home be
a hub of activity for those poor and alone and hungry and naked and
scared stiff and dirty and sick and depressed and self-conscious and
crazy.
I pray that homeless people will
know where they can come for a loaf of bread and a conversation with
someone who won’t blow them off.
I pray that the woman whose kids
are being taken away from her because she can’t stop hitting them
can know where to come to be hugged.
I pray that kids who are scared
or bored will come and play in our yard and read books and play soccer
and wrestle with our kids instead of joining gangs.
I pray that our kids will grow
up to know you and enjoy you and walk with you. I pray that they will
experience your love in our home and that these experiences will mold
and shape them for their entire lives.
I pray that we will be known
primarily
by the way we love those around us.
I pray that the families of our
church unite around the cause of loving you by serving our neighbors
throughout the entire neighborhood. I pray that we not accept compromise
and dilution of our calling. I pray that we don’t see the broken as
a threat to our schedules or our efficiency or our neatness. Instead,
I pray that we see our schedules, efficiency and neatness as a threat
to those who are at the center of your heart.
I pray that people be lead to
lives of service, devotion and complete abandon for you in our house.
I pray that people be miraculously healed in our home.
I pray that people be freed from
years of bondage and spiritual oppression in our living rooms, that
stomach aching laughter will spill out of our dining room windows, and
that life giving conversations will be commonplace in our kitchens.
I pray that our home will be the setting for the actions of the
beatitudes.
I pray that the prayers that flow
out of our house will travel the globe and penetrate the darkest corners
of our planet.
I pray against sin, the sin which
seeks to destroy God’s work in our lives and destroy our very selves.
I pray against the sin that will seek out my children. I pray against
the demons that those who are most needy will be dragging in with them
as they limp across our threshold. I pray that the prince of this
world will be a powerless bystander at our home. I pray that people
feel your peace as they enter our home and even as they walk by the
street.
I pray that you give us creative
ideas for how to be neighbors, but even now I realize that it’s not
creativity that we most need but obedience. We desperately long to obey
you.
In the name of He who will catch
us when we fall on our faces, the king of kings, he who took on flesh,
who alone reigns, the Lord Jesus the Christ.
