In these days it seems the news is all very important, all engrossing, and all potentially ever more disastrous. We are a people who acknowledge that we live in a very tenuous world. Yet through everything God is still present, watching, brooding, wondering how we shall deal with whatever confronts us. He moves us each week to gather in His name and to seek His assistance for our daily lives. Therefore let us, with renewed trust and confidence, worship God.
Pastoral Prayer
Lord God, we confess before Thee that there are times when it is emotionally and psychologically hard to read, listen to, or watch the news. Often there are so many massive, seemingly intractable, problems that we wonder how the human race shall ever survive them. Yet through it all we choose to believe in Thy presence among us, and in the goodness of Thy will for all of us.
Be with everyone who is adversely affected by the news headlines, and with the millions of others who are indirectly affected and are gravely concerned for loved ones or friends or business associates. We pray for peoples seeking freedom from heavy-handed governments in various nations around the world. Grant them courage in the face of virulent and violent opposition, and grant far greater levels of moderation to the government forces who oppose them.
We thank Thee for evidences we see around us, however faint they may be, of Thy kingdom manifesting itself in people and events which daily touch our lives. Keep us from asking either for too much of the kingdom or for too much too soon. Enable us to perceive the kingdom in the play of little children, in the selfless acts of ordinary people, in the profound courage of those who lay their lives on the line in visible and profound ways which somehow never have seemed kingdom-oriented to us. Working through us, may Thy kingdom come and Thy will be done on earth. We ask these things in the name of him who long ago taught us the words to a certain prayer by saying, Our Father….