Your steadfast love, O LORD, extends to the heavens,
     your faithfulness to the clouds.
Your righteousness is like the mighty mountains,
     your judgments are like the great deep;
     you save humans and animals alike, O LORD.
How precious is your steadfast love, O God!
     All people may take refuge in the shadow of your wings.

Psalm 36:5-7

Prayer

Gracious God, your love is steadfast, unfailing, and faithful.
Your love is always there for me, in good times and bad.
Your love never lets me go.

Your love reaches to the skies.
It is as vast as the heavens,
Immeasurable, immense, boundless.

Your love protects me,
Covering me as a mother hen covers her chicks,
Guarding them from harm,
Keeping them safe.

Your love is precious to me,
A priceless treasure to be cherished.
Yet you give it freely because you are Love.

As I go about my work today, Lord,
May your love go before me,
May it surround me and support me.
May your love fill me,
So that I might share it with others,
With my colleagues and customers,
With my neighbors and friends,
And even with those who believe they’re my enemies.

Thank you for loving me through Jesus Christ,
Whose love claims me,
Transforms me,
Inspires me,
And fills me. Amen.

Ponder Throughout the Day

The love of God is precious and it is always there for you.

For Further Reflection

Read all of Psalm 36, paying attention to what the Spirit of God is stirring up in your heart, especially in relationship to your work. Talk with God about what you are thinking and feeling.

You might also reflect on the following passages from Romans and 1 John:

Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? . . . No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. - Romans 8:35, 37-39

Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love. God’s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins. Beloved, since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God lives in us, and his love is perfected in us. - 1 John 4:7-12

This prayer is part of a collection: 52 Workday Prayers: Learn from the Psalms How to Pray through Your Work. To purchase this devotional and small group guide, visit the De Pree Center store.