Extremists drive cars speed down city streets, killing and injuring innocent people in their mad plunge into infamy. In the face of such incidents, who cannot be anxious? The leader of the most powerful nation in the world continues to do and say strange and inexplicable things, and the presidency appears to totter. Who cannot be anxious? Life is filled with inequities and uncertainties, and who cannot be anxious? A soothing, encouraging voice commands us: “Do not be anxious.” Let us, despite all our human frailties, worship God.
Pastoral Prayer
Gracious and benevolent God, by Thy power alone do we exist. By Thy love alone are we able to continue in life from day to day. By Thy grace are we enabled to come to Thee in prayer, thanking Thee for Thy power, praising Thee for Thy love, bathing in Thy grace. Give us faith and trust to enter into Thy presence, and then, having been with Thee in worship, give us strength and wisdom to go forth into a new week, refreshed by having devoted our hearts and minds to Thee.
We ask that as we prepare for a singular and extraordinary event in our lives tomorrow, that we may perceive Thy majestic magnificence as never before. We thank Thee for the astonishing knowledge of people of science who can predict a solar eclipse with absolute certainty. We are even more humbled to know that many centuries ago other people who studied the movement of the sun and moon and stars were also able to predict such events, and where they would occur, and why. Ultimately it because of Thee that all knowledge is discovered and maintained, and because of Thine eternal principles that the universe operates in patterns which amaze and overwhelm us. How great Thou art, O God; how great Thou art!
We pray for the millions of people who shall be utterly unmoved by the eclipse, or who deliberately choose to ignore it. We pray for people who rarely or never stand in awe of anything, but who plod on in life, unmoved by anything, even by Thee. We pray for those who mentally are incapable of understanding anything, and who must be cared for by loving and patient people who tend daily to their needs, for those who are in prisons and who believe their lives are growing smaller every day, for those who bear the burdens of others and who have grown weary in their well-doing. Lord God, be with all of us, whatever our needs, and help us more fully to appreciate Thy love, which refuses ever to let any of us go. We make our petitions in the name of Jesus Christ, by whose persistent, wise teachings we have come to know Thee. Now we pray together as Jesus taught his first disciples, saying, Our Father….