A "Morning After" Prayer
On "the morning after" the financial and political debacle in Congress, I was scheduled to give the opening prayer for our City Council. Here's what I felt led to pray:
O God, the Infinite Creator who endowed this nation with the dream of liberty, the Loving Lord who weeps over the way we abuse our freedom, the Gracious Spirit who is persistently at work to forgive our arrogance, resolve our conflicts, redeem our failures and fulfill the vision of liberty and justice for all, we turn our weary hearts to you.
On this "morning after," the bonfire of our political and ideological polarization, we give thanks for cooler heads who calmed the flames of passion and brought this contentious crisis to an end. Thank you for a system of government that can sustain and renew itself through every crisis.
We pray for every person whose life or livelihood has been negatively impacted by the shutdown of our government.
We pray for the elected leaders of our city, our county, our state and our nation. Give them wisdom beyond their own to fulfill their calling in the confluence of conflicting agendas.
May "we, the people" rise above petty partisanship that together with our leaders we may yet "form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity."
To that end, empower us by your Spirit so that "government of the people, by the people and for the people might not perish from the earth."
Amen.
Perhaps we are seeing what Winston Churchill meant when he said, "Democracy is the worst form of government in the world except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time."
But with all its foibles and failures, its confusion and conflict, its noble leaders and outrageous jackasses, I still choose to trust our Constitution. I still get a lump in my throat when I walk the Mall in Washington. And I still believe that as a follower of Jesus Christ, I am called to pray for all of our leaders and to do all that I can to build up rather than tear down.
While I am skeptical of politicians who are convinced that they - and they alone - speak for "the American people," my guess is that most of the American people, at least most of the time, still share those convictions with me. So, I continue to pray with humility and not with arrogance, "God, please bless America."
|
>>>KEEP SCROLLING for RELATED CONTENT & COMMENTARY, RESOURCES & REPLIES