Prayer for Today

Fisher of our Souls,

you capture us in your net

even as we swim against your call—

fearing life outside our familiar waters.

We know how to breathe in this place;

it comforts us to swim in our small ponds,

around familiar folk, and amidst safe surroundings.

But you, O Christ, with your fisherman’s net—

you pull us to the land:

to new ways of breathing your Spirit;

and to a call to follow you, to put ourselves out there.

Out here! in a world of pain.

Amidst floods and guns, disease, addiction and anxiety;

amidst small celebrations and grand resurrections;

amidst the continuing work of justice—like that begun by Martin Luther King, Jr.

You call us into life, out here in the world—

where we are now the ones to do the fishing:

the calling to others that, beyond our waters’ safety,

in the unpredictable world,

is the Good News of your Love.

Fisher of our souls:

as you call us,

recreate, resurrect,

and sustain our spirits.

Amen.