A Concord Pastor Comments: Pause for Prayer: SATURDAY 9/29

Ournation is divided, Lord,
and the gap between the two sides
could widen the Grand Canyon
and stretch it from coast to coast...

Division and acrimony, Lord:
bitterness, mistrust, animosity, prejudice,
ill will, sarcasm, rancor, hostility,
and hardness of heart...

And all this, Lord,
on both sides of the divide...

It's painful, Lord,
to see revealed how divided,
how broken is this nation,
how deep our common wounds,
how much in need of healing its people,
how helpless and weak we are,
unable to lay aside our ideologies for the truth,
our greed for justice,
our comfort for self-sacrifice,
our partisanship for unity...

And you know well, Lord,
there is no easy fix here,
no overnight solution,
no facile reconciliation:
our wounds are much too deep and of the kind
that only time and sacrifice and humility
can begin to heal...

And prayer, Lord,
we need to pray for healing...

We'll not right these wrongs on our own,
we'll not salvage this nation's glory and promise
through our own determination and strength -
we will not, we cannot do this by ourselves
but only with your help, your strength
and your power, Lord...

And so, we pray, Lord...

We pray you give the counsel we need
to truly understand the depth of our division...

We pray you give the wisdom we need
to see through and beyond our petty schemes...

We pray you give the strength we need
to build again what we've dismantled in our foolishness...

We pray for the determination to persevere,
especially when the task at hand seems impossible...

We pray you renew your gift of faith, Lord,
that we might remember it's you, our Creator,
who endow us with certain, unalienable rights...

Send us your Spirit, Lord, to lead us and guide us,
to shape and mold us in your image,
to refresh and strengthen your people with your grace
and most of all:
to seek you and find you and know you
in all things,
in the whole of creation
and especially, Lord, in one another
and in this nation we call our home...

Amen.