Holy God, everlasting love, we bow our hearts to your glory …
Be merciful to us, we pray … we are not always in our right mind … there are times when we stubbornly refuse the guidance of your love … when we speak before we think, when we act imprudently, when we judge others so easily, even as we wink at our own behavior.
Be merciful to us, we pray … that we might come to a more accurate assessment of who we are, with a more generous respect for others … heal our souls, guide our steps, keep us close to Christ.
We pray today for Syria and Turkey … the pall of death hangs over these lands … grief and hardship prevail for tens of thousands of families …
We pray for the peacemakers in Sudan … and peacemakers everywhere … who see the better way … who put their lives on the line to promote a just and righteous peace.
Bless our nation, O LORD … we’re rich, we’re powerful … our military stretches across the globe … help us, we pray, to keep our balance … to find our strength in our character and not in our weapons … to find the America envisioned in the heart of Abraham Lincoln, inscribed on the Statue of Liberty’s pedestal … fought for on the beaches of Normandy.
We pray for those who have bowed down to the false gods of power … preachers who have lost their way, spiritual leaders who abuse … we pray for those who’ve been harmed by it all … those to whom the doors of the church have been slammed shut and barred … so many, O LORD, have felt the sting of narrow religion - their souls battered by rejection and shame.
We pray for America’s schools - teachers struggling to balance learning and bad politics … school boards besieged by angry mobs … librarians under attack; books censored … children judged and shamed by ignorant adults.
We pray for those trapped in drug abuse … bound in the chains of something so deadly and powerful … have mercy upon them, we pray, and help us build the resources needed for treatment, healing, and recovery …
We pray for the lonely, the sad, the frightened, the confused and wandering, for whom the burdens of life press down so hard, life no longer seems possible.
We’re glad, O God, to have this time to pray, to think and sing, to lift our hearts up to you, to offer our hands to one another … in this place of peace and beauty.
Help us, we pray, to be wise in our thoughts, kind in our behavior, generous with our lives.
In the name of our LORD Jesus Christ who taught us to pray, saying:
Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread; and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors; and lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory, forever. Amen.
All this we pray in Jesus name, amen.
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