For Our Living Cares
by Michael Doyle

Prayer is not even in the least bit
To be prayed like the hypocrites
To preach or to pray; it's easier to say
What it is to put your beliefs in play

It's not the facade but in keeping it real
Let's not wake up in the difference that we feel
But instead, living the truth we need
Keeping God's ways, we must and will gladly heed

The end has come to the time of spoon-fed fools
When all we did was live by the gilded rules
We've come to a time of living lives of worship
When we've come to live by holy relationship

We are to pray as if in private conversation
Driving firmly toward the heavenly intended destination
Trumping over false desires for the wrong things
To put on the righteous love for godly things

Prayer is the best treasure of our inheritance
Reaching for us and toward us, despite reluctance
To be treasured with the fullness of our souls
This is the truth of love that enriches and consoles

The truest prayers are found not just in our talking
But in our listening to God as we're silently walking
Under the veil of the seven stars and the silver moon
Intending that we might head and avoid our dooms

We can pray our expectations of good delivered from bad
God will change our words to what we should have had
Better to have thought through all that we've sought
In the theology of the Bible, lived so it's not forgot

God will show up in the startled moments that we live
Speaking to our hearts as we learn to take and to give
When we listen, it is as if we are entering the lion's den
Walked into as in daily life, we confront the world's sin

God shows up when and wherever He is least expected
Especially when He is listened to and not neglected
The lives we live are the result of someone else's prayers
Putting aside the accidents and incidents of our living cares

(c) July 21, 2024   Michael Doyle
All Rights Reserved