Prayer for the Fearful

Sacred Ordinary Days with Jenn Giles Kemper

Naming our fears doesn’t make us weak—it makes us brave. Join us as we pray for the fears that so easily entangle us. How do we discern when our fear is our God-given intuition, protecting us? And how do we discern when it’s a lie taking root in our hearts, wrapping around us like a weed to prevent us from walking the path of love God intends for us? In this fourth week of Sacred Ordinary Days communal prayer, Kayla Craig, liturgist-in-residence and podcast producer at Sacred Ordinary Days, hosts this time of reflection and prayer to help you on your journey of becoming more wholly human, more fully faithful.

P.S. Did you miss last week’s prayer for the exhausted? You can find it here.

We invite you to join us for companionship and guidance as we seek to meet God in new ways with humility, grace, and mercy. Our time together will lead us right up to Ash Wednesday with a posture of reflection and hope in Christ. May this time together transform us to be more wholly human, more fully faithful.

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Each week, you’ll receive:

• A personal prayer written for you by our Sacred Ordinary Days team
• Scripture to meditate on
• An audio prayer to stream from our podcast
• Quotes and featured liturgies from a diverse group of Christian writers
• Tools for your prayer practice
• Reflection points for the journey

To meditate on:

There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love. We love because he first loved us. // 1 John 4:18-19 (NIV)

God is love. When we take up permanent residence in a life of love, we live in God and God lives in us. This way, love has the run of the house, becomes at home and mature in us, so that we’re free of worry on Judgment Day—our standing in the world is identical with Christ’s. There is no room in love for fear. Well-formed love banishes fear. Since fear is crippling, a fearful life—fear of death, fear of judgment—is one not yet fully formed in love. We, though, are going to love—love and be loved. First we were loved, now we love. He loved us first. // 1 John 4:18-19 (The Message)

To reflect on: What is one fear you have been holding onto this week? What might naming that fear have to teach you?