A Prayer On 9/11

Dear Lord,

Thank you.

Thank you for our lives.

Thank you for the privilege and blessing of being able to live in this country.

Thank you for the sacrifices our forbearers made to establish and preserve a representative form of government. Thank you for the abundant natural resources and natural beauty of our land. We live a life of relative bounty compared to our brothers and sisters around the world. We also have more input in the governing of our nation than most in human history. We thank you for our material blessings and our good fortune to not live in a nation of tyranny. We thank you for entrusting us with the responsibility of living in a democratic nation.

Lord, thank you also for the diversity of our people. Thank you for the various cultures that have made their home in this land. Thank you for the native peoples, the people who came here in hopes of creating a better life, and the people who were kidnapped and brutally forced to work the land to the enrichment of greedy men. I thank you for the sacrifices all of these people have made, the endurance they have shown, and the brilliant contributions they have made to create a country like no other in the world. When I have traveled in other countries I have been particularly cognizant of the richness our multicultural heritage has given us. We take it for granted when we see faces with different shades of melanin in a single family or in a school or a battalion of soldiers. We take it for granted when we hear different languages spoken in the same community. Jazz and Country & Western. Dim Sum and Creole. Ballet Folklorico and Clogging. Our diversity sets us apart from other natiosn and makes us infinitely richer. Thank you.

Lord, thank you for the people who lost their lives on 9/11. We thank you for the time they had on this earth, and we thank you for welcoming them with open arms to the eternal reward of being reunited with you. We thank you for their bravery and heroism. The firefighters who ran into burning buildings so that others might find safety. The police who tried to instill order when chaos reigned. The school teachers who guided their young students to safety, risking their own lives and bringing comfort to scared children’s hearts. The ordinary people on Flight 93 who stood up to violence and hatred, refusing to be victims and giving us all amazing examples of democracy and heroism. We thank you for the many less known acts of bravery and compassion in New York, the D.C. area, St. John’s and countless places across this land on 9/11 when our nation was in the chaos of a surprise attack and we weren’t sure where the next act of terrorism would occur. Thank you for the courageous voices after 9/11 who preached peace and counseled against pointless acts of violence as a response to the unspeakable evil we had encountered.

Thank you, Lord, for the wondrous plans you have for our nation and its people. I thank you for the courage, wisdom and guidance you bestow on us to carry out your plans. Help us to stay faithful to you and become the people that you intend. Help us to be good stewards of the riches you have entrusted.

In your name we pray. Amen

1 Chronicles 29:11-13

To you, LORD,
belong greatness and power,
honor, splendor, and majesty,
because everything in heaven
and on earth belongs to you.
Yours, LORD, is the kingship,
and you are honored as head of all.
You are the source of wealth and honor,
and you rule over all.
In your hand are strength and might,
and it is in your power to magnify
and strengthen all.
And now, our God, we thank you
and praise your glorious name.

Jeremiah 29:11

I know the plans I have in mind for you, declares the LORD; they are plans for peace, not disaster, to give you a future filled with hope.

A Prayer for the People of Japan

Dear Lord,

I’ve been heartbroken by the events in Japan this past week. The most powerful earthquake that country has ever experienced. A devastating tsunami that has wiped away whole communities. The death toll is hard to comprehend.

And now the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant has been teetering on the verge of catastrophe. People have been evacuated from the region. Others have been told to stay indoors. Foreign governments are evacuating their people out of fears there will be a nuclear meltdown and a massive release of radiation. It is hard to take in the scale and the repercussions of this perfect storm of tragedies.

I’m so overwhelmed with what has happened and what is continuing to happen that I am not sure what to do or what to ask. I am not a rich person. Giving money seems a pointless gesture in the face of the immense need. All I know to do it to lift the people in Japan up in prayer. But, my God, you know better than I what the people in and near Japan need. Nonetheless, I lift them up to you as best I know how.

I ask you to receive into your Kingdom those souls who perished in the earthquake and tsunami. I cannot imagine the terror of their last moments on this planet, but I trust that the glory of your eternal Kingdom makes up for those brief moments of anguish.

Lord, I ask your blessing on the survivors.

I ask you to mend the broken hearts of the many who have lost their loved ones. Especially I ask you to care for the orphaned and the parents who lost their children. The rupture of a parent-child relationship is particularly hard to bear and only you can mend such wounds.

I ask you to bring calm and recovery to the chaos of resource shortages and a disrupted economy. I ask you to guide people back to the business of living and to living productive lives. I thank you for the news stories I have read about the relative calm of the survivors and their attempts already to get to a new normal.

I ask you to bring a safe resolution to the difficulties at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant. I thank you for the brave people who have sacrificed much to stay and to work to avert catastrophe. I thank you for their courage and their intellect to work with a dangerous and complex power infrastructure to keep millions of people safe. Please bless their work and make it fruitful.

Lord, I thank you that my relatives stationed in Okinawa were not impacted by the earthquake or the tsunami. I ask your continued protection of them so that they are not harmed by the events at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant. I ask you to give them peace of mind. I know how stressful it is for them to be living so close to where so many are suffering.

Lord, I thank you for the blessings my family, friends and community enjoy in this country. I know you do not provide those blessings so we can just enjoy a comfortable life but you bless us to be a blessing. I know you want us to use our God-given resources to help your hurting people. Please guide me and everyone in my community to know what we should do to help the people of Japan. Please help us discern your will for our lives. Please help us be obedient to that will, and to be instruments of your hope and love.

Thank you for your faithfulness and your love for all your people.

Amen.

A Prayer for Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann

Dear Lord,

I thank you for the lives, the intellects and the dedication of my sisters, Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann. They are both women who love you, and who are passionate about their families and making a difference in our country. Thank you for their strength and tenacity.

Heavenly father, I get concerned about the ugliness in public discourse these days. It frustrates me that people seem to vilify those who have a different perspective, and there seems to be a tendency to take offense quickly and not even try to find common ground. When I read your Word, those things seem to be incompatible. As a result, I particularly don’t understand when my brothers and sisters in Christ do such things. It perplexes me. It overwhelms me. And to be honest, it depresses me and makes me feel somewhat hopeless about the future of our country. That alarms me, Lord, because I love my children and want them to live in a country that rises to challenges instead of falls into pointless bicker.

Lord, please help me to trust in your wisdom with all my heart and to lean not on my own understanding. Help me to remember that I am just one person, full of human limitations, and I do not know all that you know. Help me to remember that you have us in the palm of your hand. Help me trust in your plan for us all.

And Lord, I recognize it is human nature for all of us to take offense and not listen. I recognize it in myself. Help instill in me a patient heart and an open mind. Help me to listen and be enlightened to what my brothers and sisters have to say.

Thank you for your Word, and thank you in particular for James 1:19: This you know, my beloved brethren, but everyone must be quick to hear, slow to speak and slow to anger. Help me to integrate that wisdom in my own life.

Lord, I thank you for strong Christian mothers. Help guide all “mama grizzlies” to protect their children from harm and to nurture them to be the people you intend. Help us raise a generation of children who will dedicate their lives to serving you by ministering to your people and saving this beautiful planet that you created for us so that it will nurture and sustain generations of your people to come.

Thank you for your unending love of us. Help each of us to reflect that love as we interact with others so that they will come to know you.

Amen.

A Prayer for Rush Limbaugh

Dear Lord,

I thank you for the life of my brother, Rush Limbaugh. You gave him life out of your deep and abiding love for him as your precious child. I acknowledge that he is as precious in your eyes as I am. Moreover, I recognize that he and I are both as precious as any other child of yours who has ever walked this planet. Thank you for not playing favorites and loving all your children despite our many imperfections. I know you are the loving, overjoyed father of whom Jesus spoke in Luke 15:20. Thank you for your unceasing love and faithfulness.

Heavenly father, I get really concerned about the types of things that I hear Mr. Limbaugh speak publicly. What is expressed seems to come from an uncharitable, selfish attitude, and not an attitude of love for others. I try to not judge that attitude, but I fear for the destructiveness of such spoken words because they seem to find such an enthusiastic audience. But I know that everything is in your hands, and I must trust in your ways. I ask you to increase my faith to keep me from worrying over such things.

I also humbly acknowledge that I myself often exemplify an uncharitable, selfish attitude. I know I should not worry about the splinter in Mr. Limbaugh’s eyes when I have a beam in my own. I ask your continued guidance in helping me to remove the beam from my eye and to cultivate a more loving heart in me. Let me be clay that is easily molded by your hands.

Finally, Lord, I lift up my brother, Mr. Limbaugh to you. I know he is a troubled human being who has struggled with many challenges in life. I thank you for helping him lose weight. I thank you for medical technology that helps him overcome his deafness. I thank you that you have brought love to his life with his recent marriage.

Heavenly father, I ask you to watch over my brother, Mr. Limbaugh. I ask you to help him lead a healthy life and continue to lose weight so that he can live a productive life on this planet for many years to come. I ask you to bless his marriage. May it be a long and happy union. Lord, I also ask you to bless Mr. Limbaugh’s radio program. May it be an instrument of love and understanding so that more of your children will come to know you.

Amen.