Prayer for Palm Sunday "Trimph and Trouble" April 5, 2009

Glorious and most wonderful God we are grateful for your strong, enduring and patient presence. Remind us in our most fretful moments when we are caught up in fearing the worst that you are with us; your Spirit is ever moving in and through us wherever we are. We confess that when life catches us by surprise or we make a mistake we can get thrown off kilter spiritually. We have a tendency to spend an inordinate amount of time feeling guilty, or wronged, dumb or undervalued, filling our hearts with resentment toward those strangers or friends who have not appreciated us fully. Help us Dearest Lord, to get beyond our need to feel important and beyond requiring an engraved invitation to be a part of the shared ministry of Jesus Christ. As we enter this Holy Week, marvelous Redeemer, cause us to surrender our need for recognition, our desire to be chosen, selected, singled out as special, lifted up as one among the first. May this Holy Week bring us to the realization that, indeed you have continued to choose us and to love each and every one of us beyond even our wildest imagination. Humble us, O Lord. Strip us of our pride, our arrogance and our sense of entitlement in the name of the Christ we pray. Amen.