A Prayer for Help

O Lord and Father of us all - but especially of those who believe - help our unbelief - help our worship - help our seeing and our hearing - help our praying. We remember the promise of the Scriptures: "The Spirit comes to help us, weak as we are, for we do not know how we ought to pray; the Spirit himself pleads with God for us, in groans that words cannot express." We praise Thee for this promise as we try to pray.
Lord, in the midst of all the wonders of the world - man's creative genius and all the discoveries that have blessed our lives - in the midst of all this, we still must confess how frail we are. We control so much, and yet so little. If we live a long life, it is but less than a day in your sight. We accomplish so much and possess so much and seek so much more, but it profits us nothing if we gain the whole world and lose our souls. So teach us to number our days that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom.
Let this hour of worship in this house be a time of awakening and renewal of life for all of us. Save us from judgement of others that breaks our fellowship - and help us to remember that we cannot even judge ourselves - only God is our judge and he is slow to anger and plenteous in mercy. We thank you for the kind of grace that frees us to accept ourselves and others - as you have accepted us - the kind of grace that enables us to acknowledge our failures and to make a new beginning.
Now, O Lord, we commit to you all the things that well up within us to hurt and destroy. We pray especially for those who know today, as they did not know a little while ago, that death is an enemy. We pray for those who are sick of body or of mind; for those who are discouraged or depressed; for those who are fighting a hard battle with temptation; for those who have tried and failed; for those who have a problem that neither we nor they understand but that hurts just the same. O Lord, enable us to believe that your grace is sufficient for us - that your strength is made perfect in weakness.
Hear all our prayers, spoken and unspoken, and answer us for they great mercies' sake, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen