Lord, thank you for your unfailing love, for your wonderful deeds for your people. You band us together for a common purpose, a common goal. You allow us to use our everyday gifts that we take for granted to serve You. Father, today, a group of us went to a donation center to help organize and sort items. The people there didn't need for us to have gone through any special training; they just needed us. They needed a group of twenty people who would get a job done to come help them through their daunting task of sifting through piles and piles of one person's trash to find another person's treasure. They needed us to work quickly, but most of all, to work and keep working. 
Lord, you are so gracious to us. Psalms 107 talks about how You constantly help and actively love your people. You deliver us from distress when we cry out to you. You allow us to go through our own consequences to our choices, which oftentimes is very painful and emotionally draining. All you crave for us to do is to call out to you to come rescue us, and you will come save us from ourselves. Lord, you have this same desire for all people -- to call out to you for you to save them.
I pray the same thing for the rest of our weekend, Father. From the commotion outside, it seems as if the lunch packers just finished putting the sack lunches together. 40 minutes is not bad for putting together 100 lunches and coming all the way back to the building! They are planning on driving around town to deliver water, fruit, socks, and other supplies to those in need. I echo a previous post in saying, Lord, forgive me for ignoring the needy. I oftentimes pass off doing service activities a few times a year for "having a heart for the needy." This is not so! Seeing Jesus in people is being constantly aware of those who need you, no matter what their situation.Father, I lift up the FriendSpeak potluck to you now. What a great opportunity to share Your love with people who are here for a season. I pray that in every action, we can emulate Jesus's love to the FriendSpeak readers. I pray for the singles who will be participating tonight. May they love as You do so the readers want to know You as well.
I pray for the Sweetheart banquet tomorrow. I pray that the ladies of our congregation can feel so loved by our singles. I pray that we can get to know these women of faith and begin building bridges over the generation gap that we naturally divide ourselves into. Lord, I pray that we see wisdom from our church body with the Sweetheart banquet and that we can establish friendships that will carry beyond tomorrow.
Thank you Lord,
In your son's holy name,
Amen.
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