Lord in your love forgive all our sinfulness

Lord in your love forgive all our sinfulness
How can we sing in this foreign land?
Fathers and mothers in broken distress
Worship of God now far from their thoughts;
And children’s harm of soul and body visits
As they indulge their innocent pursuits.

Lord in your love forgive all our sinfulness
As we have turned to false lesser gods;
And our inventions and idols confess
This profane age with so much to say;
All hollow talk which echoes in our mind space
And does not bless our words with Godly grace.

Lord in your love forgive all our sinfulness
As cyber surfing injures our souls;
Innocence lost with internet access
Disturbing calm and quiet of rest;
We break the trust of those we love and cherish
And share our guilt and shame and sore anguish.

Lord in your love forgive all our sinfulness
Where care is lacking in look and touch;
As we ignore each child’s hungry sadness
Hardening heart and sight blind to pain;
We close our ears to many of their poor cries
And fail to see Your own tears in their eyes.

Lord in your love forgive all our sinfulness
Much are our troubles grieving our hearts;
Failing to trust in your loving kindness
Dying and rising saving our souls;
How slow we are to recognise your presence
In all we do and think and speak and sense.

Lord in your love forgive all our sinfulness
Help us to make our slow way back home;
From distant conduct and moral dullness
Conscious at last of all selfish wrong;
Please mend our hurt and brokenness we ask You
And give us faith and hope and love renew.

(c) Robert Alexander Anderson 2011