World in Prayer

World News This Week in Prayer – Thursday, July 5, 2018

This week’s prayers are adapted, with permission, from a prayer written for U.S. Independence Day 2018 by Leslie Barnes Scoopmire.

(Inspired by the Preamble to the United States Constitution)

In peace, we pray to You, Lord, God:
from our rising to our resting
we give You thanks and praise for all your blessings.

  • We give you thanks for the 12 boys and their coach found alive after being trapped in a cave in Thailand by rising waters, for the divers who reached them with food and supplies, for all who are working to rescue them, and for the millions throughout the world who have held them in prayer during the search.
  • We give you thanks for the breakthrough in-vitro fertilization technique that may save the Northern White Rhino species – now down to two surviving females and no living males– from extinction; for all the gifts of this Earth, and all who work to protect and preserve them.

May we seek to form a more perfect union
with You and with each other,
loving our neighbors as ourselves,
sharing each other’s burdens,
seeking to relieve each other’s wants.

  • We pray for an end to the posturing and tit-for-tatting in the tariff wars started by U.S. President Donald Trump against Mexico, Canada, China and the European Union. We pray for sanity, caution, compassion and courage among U.S. leaders as Trump threatens to pull out of the World Trade Organization and violate its rules with impunity. We pray for all whose livelihoods are at stake.
  • We give thanks that all 329 municipalities in Bangladesh have agreed to join the United Nation’s Making Cities Resilient Campaign. Low-lying, densely populated Bangladesh is one of the world’s most disaster-prone countries, hit every year by cyclones that are becoming more frequent and more intense due to climate change. The UN Campaign will develop local action plans and improve infrastructures to prepare for disasters.

May we establish true justice as our foundation,
justice that builds and creates
rather than subjugates and destroys,
and work for an end to oppression, poverty, and prejudice,
remembering always the many mercies
we ourselves have received.

  • We pray for those who would want to make national criticism illegal. We pray for Poland, which has reduced the penalties in its controversial law against accusing the Polish nation of complicity in the Holocaust. In response to international pressures, jail time is no longer among the penalties.
  • We pray for the five people killed in a shooting at the Capital Gazette newsroom in Annapolis, Md. (U.S.), and for the courage and commitment of the remaining staff in getting out that day’s newspaper anyway. We pray for the countries where a free press is banned, for those who spread fake news and inflame the public against the media, and for all truth-seekers and truth-tellers everywhere.
  • We pray for the day when ethics will outweigh profit-making in every business venture. We give thanks that Kenya’s public prosecutor has ordered the arrest of two farm managers and several government officials over a dam which collapsed and killed more than 47 people in May. The dam had been constructed by unqualified staff and also broke environmental laws.
  • We pray for the day when compassion will universally be valued more highly than conformity. We pray for North Korea, where a high-ranking military officer was executed for giving out extra rice and corn rations to his troops.

May we ensure tranquility
by defending and protecting each other
in compassion and mercy,
that true liberty may be a blessing for all
grounded in our common life together.

  • We pray for the success of the peace agreement signed this week between South Sudan and rebels, where the past five years of fighting have displaced one in three South Sudanese from their homes. We pray that the promised ceasefire holds, that safe passage is indeed provided through which food, water and medicines can reach those in desperate need.
  • We pray that Russia, the U.S., and Jordan will use their influence to broker an immediate end to the fighting in southwest Syria – as they did last in persuading the Syrian government and rebels to create a de-escalation zone along the Jordanian border.
  • We pray for the eventual safe home-coming for the Rohingya people, still trapped in exile in the no-man’s-land between Myanmar and Bangladesh. U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres visited the camps earlier this week, hearing “unimaginable” accounts of atrocities.

May we work for the welfare of all
by giving of ourselves in unity, gentleness, and sacrifice,
rooted in God’s love,
grounded in the call to welcome and protect
those who turn to us for help or refuge,
and protecting the least among us always.

  • We pray for those whose homelands are no longer a place of safety. We pray for those from Africa trying to reach Europe, for those from South and Central America trying to reach the United States, for the many refugees trying to find someplace – anyplace – where they will be welcome.
  • We pray for the countries in the European Union that have reached a deal in principle on how to handle African refugees and migrants, but differ sharply on the implementation details, with no country yet willing to set up the “secure migrant processing centers” called for in the agreement.
  • We pray for the families separated by the U.S. “zero-tolerance” policies against would-be immigrants and asylum seekers. We pray for the children – some as young as toddlers – expected to represent themselves in immigration court.
  • We pray for all who have settled into new countries, only to find that those, too, are not places of safety. We pray for the 3-year-old refugee in Boise, Idaho (U.S.) who died after a man with an extensive criminal background stabbed her, five other children and three adults at her birthday party. We pray for all migrants who face distrust and anger, and all who harbor suspicion and hatred towards them. We pray for all who want to live together in peace.

May we secure the blessings of life, liberty, and happiness
and free ourselves
from all that chains us-
fear,
want,
suspicion,
jealousy,
division,
injustice-
and fully embrace and celebrate each other
in all our diversity.

Bless us and keep us, O God,
that we may dwell in peace, equality, and security all our days. AMEN

World News This Week in Prayer- Thursday, February 22, 2018

“Be still, and know that I am God”
(Psalm 46:10)

O God, O God, my God, our world is full of anything but stillness. There is no silence to be found, I fear; no quiet about. We hear of your “still small voice”, we know You have taught that there is virtue in silence, we yearn for “green pastures” and “still waters” where You can restore our souls.

But all around us are sounds we cannot escape. The crack and pop of gunfire in schools in the United States. The screams of targeted children, the moans of the wounded, the sirens of police and ambulances, the shouts and gasps of families. These echo the bomb blasts of terrorists and bomb-strikes of armies in Syria and Afghanistan and Iraq, and the aftermath of it all. So close to home.

We hear the loud voices of those who demand change, or peace, or justice. We hear the chatter of politicians and pundits who explain away change, or peace, or justice. And now we hear a children’s chorus of victims and survivors, reviving the ancient Biblical hope that “a little child shall lead them.” We hear the calls for action, for accountability. And we hear the mockery and insults as clearly as we hear the passion and demands.

We hear the pleas of refugees in camps in Bangladesh and Kenya and Lebanon, and migrants on the seas; we hear the scratch of the pen across the paper as decisions are made about who shall be free or turned away. We hear the whimpering of the hungry, the wailing of the mournful who do not feel blessed.

God, we hear it all, and we are caught in-between. We want silence and stillness in order to know You, and to hear You. But we know we should not block out such sounds. Our world cries out to us, as surely as they cry out to You. In partnership with You we hear. Lord, as much as we might wish to be, we pray for, an exemption. Be known to us through all these sounds. Amen.

World News This Week in Prayer- December 14, 2017

Holy One,
“There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him.” (John 1)

“My soul magnifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant. Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed; for the Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is his name.” (Luke 1)

We know this to be true: You speak to us and our spirits vibrate with your call. You breathe upon our lives and we breathe in your peace. You sing and our feet pick up the tune. You turn the world upside down, and our hearts are lifted high. Your light pierces the dark, your justice overturns the powerful, your grace shatters the illusion of our own grandeur; in so many moments, surprising and unexpected, we have witnessed the way you transform the world.
And yet, still we struggle when we turn to pray for the world. We struggle to remember these moments of your glory. We struggle to trust in your work. We struggle to magnify your peace and justice, your mercy and righteousness. When the world wants to drown us with despair, we struggle to let our hearts blaze with hope and joy.
We need your Word. We need your Word as proclaimed by John the Baptist in his fiery speeches about your Light. We need your Word in Mary as she sings forth the prophetically profound Magnificat. We need these words and your Word to realign our priorities, to refocus our gaze, to redirect us towards the dance of your Spirit in the world around us.
As we turn to pray for the world, we know we see with Your eyes. We need to look with Your eyes at the Democratic Republic of Congo to see the nearly half a million children who face starvation. We need to look with Your eyes at the entrenched Israeli/Palestinean conflict to see the civilians injured in recent weeks by mobs and rockets in the occupied Palestinian territories. We need to look with Your eyes at our current political partisan divides to see the hundreds of men and women who have had the courage to claim their experience of sexual assault in the United States and beyond. We need to look with Your eyes at Zimbabwe and Kenya, to witness the citizens involved in the tenuous transition of political power. We need to look with Your eyes at the refugees who remain in limbo in Greece, Syria, Turkey, Germany, Myanmar, Jordan, Israel, and the countries of Central America.
We need to look with Your eyes and hold these prayers in our hearts, because we believe that you are God with Us, Emmanuel, and all of those lifted up in prayer are your beloved children.
In you, we live and move and have our being. In you, we pray our prayers for the world. In you, we remember who and whose we are.
Thanks be to you, the Word Made Flesh.
Amen.

World News in Prayer for Thursday, September 14, 2017

[Italicized portions below from John Newton’s hymn Amazing Grace]
Amazing grace! How sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me!
I once was lost, but now am found;
Was blind, but now I see.

God of grace and sound, we need finding. The world around us is broken by climatic and political chaos, and many of us feel wretched and blind.

’Twas grace that taught my heart to fear,
And grace my fears relieved;
How precious did that grace appear
The hour I first believed.

God of relief, help us to believe. We have lost faith in our governments: 600 citizens are displaced in Ethiopia following a boundary dispute, and nearly half a million Rohingya Muslims have fled to Bangladesh following what is widely perceived as ethnic cleansing in Myanmar.

Through many dangers, toils and snares,
I have already come.

We have lost lives and land to the danger of fires:
§  In Malaysia, where 23 children and two school staff were killed in a fire at a Muslim boarding school
§  In Kenya, where a 14-year-old student set fire to a school dormitory that killed nine other students
§  Across the Western United States, from Southern California to Glacier National Park in Montana, experts predict this wildfire season to be one of the worst in decades

’Tis grace hath brought me safe thus far,
And grace will lead me home.

God of safety and home, we ask you to help the people of Texas in the United States as they rebuild their homes and communities in the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey. And we lost lives as a result of Hurricane Irma in the following countries:
§  Anguilla
§  Barbuda
§  British Virgin Islands
§  Cuba
§  Puerto Rico
§  St. Barts
§  Saint Martin
§  Sint Maarten
§  Turks and Caicos
§  US Virgin Islands

When this flesh and heart shall fail,
And mortal life shall cease,
I shall possess, within the veil,
A life of joy and peace.

We are grateful to those who bring joy and peace into our lives: first responders, children, religious leaders, teachers, parents, healers, and the families we create. We have found grace in the responses of the American, British, Dutch, and French governments as they provide aid to Caribbean populations devastated by Hurricane Irma.

God of grace, help us to find amazing, help us to be amazing, and help us to be found. Amen.

World News This Week in Prayer – Thursday, August 3, 2017

The Lord upholds all who are falling, and raises up all who are bowed down. Psalm 145:14

There is a balm in Gilead to make the wounded whole;

There is a balm in Gilead to heal the sin-sick soul.

God of grace and glory, God who knows our hearts and minds, you can see, you can feel the pain of your children as we attempt to honestly bring to you our concerns for the people of this world, our sisters and brothers in so many places, people who are striving for good and honest and just government in Venezuela and Brazil, in Syria and Iran, in Kenya and Turkey and Pakistan. We lift up those abducted in the night, those arrested, jailed, and persecuted for speaking out for justice and their stance against the governments they believe are not functioning in the best interests of the people.

The Lord upholds those who are falling, and raises up all who are bowed down.

Even as migrants continue to risk everything crossing into Europe, preyed upon by smugglers, as people in Central America continue to flee gang violence, human trafficking and threats to their lives, so many national governments are attempting to limit immigration, tightening immigration laws, heedless that our sisters and brothers desperately need both sanctuary and hope, and so we lift up both the refugees and those in government, that hearts might be opened and lives saved.

The Lord upholds those who are falling, and raises up all who are bowed down.

Send your protective mercy to the firefighters in Western Canada and USA as forests and fields, families and communities come into harms way and a smokey haze fills the region impacting the health of elders and those with respiratory conditions.

The Lord upholds those who are falling, and raises up all who are bowed down.

Even as our hearts are heavy, you gift us to see glimmers of light which shine from unexpected places: the man who gave a ride to a stranger in need in North Carolina, USA who now continues to offer rides to strangers in need he encounters; the young Wal-Mart employee in Oklahoma, USA who paid for the groceries of a harried and struggling foster mom at the check-out counter; and 8-year-old Roxy Gettes who became the youngest girl to conquer Mount Kilimanjaro, Kenya with her family.  We lift up all who continue to inspire us and give us hope in the goodness and beauty of life.

The Lord upholds those who are falling; and raises up all who are bowed down.

As we look toward the wonder of the total solar eclipse later this August, and are reminded how marvelous and consistent are the forces of nature that are outside of our control. We lift up those in Kenya, Botswana, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo who are working to save the elephants, as well as those policy-makers in China who are working to outlaw the ivory trade. Keep us ever mindful of our role as stewards taking seriously our responsibility to care for this amazing world.

The Lord upholds those who are falling; and raises up all who are bowed down.

God of grace and glory, God who knows our hearts and minds, help us in our determination to be the people you have created and called us to be. When we become discouraged, lift us up. When we think it is all up to us, fill us with humility. When our hearts become fearful and fretful, remind us of your unfailing love, which flows even through us.

The Lord upholds those who are falling; and raises up all who are bowed down.

In this promise, we live and move and have our being. Amen and Amen.

World News This Week in Prayer – Thursday, April 27, 2017

Amen.
Yes.
So be it.
It will certainly be like this.
May it be so.
This is the truth.
On this we can depend.
Amen!

Compassionate and loving God, as we watch events unfold across our world, our emotions often cannot be translated into words.  So we call out to You with a word You gave us through Your holy Word and on the lips of Your Word made flesh: “Amen”. Amen, we say, at once pleading, celebrating, and hoping for the coming of Your kingdom into our world of laughter and tears, fear and faith.

Although our news is often filled with suffering and hate, we know that Your love is evident all around us, O God.  Our amens are joyful as we celebrate the small glimpses of Your kingdom that we can see in this world.  We rejoice at the humanity of Syrian photographer Abd Alkader Habak, who put down his camera to rescue a child who was injured in a car bomb explosion in Aleppo, Syria.  As we commemorate the World Health Organization’s World Malaria Day this week, we delight in the development of the world’s first malaria vaccine, which will be distributed throughout Ghana, Kenya, and Malawi beginning in 2018.  We are glad at the news of a newly-discovered coral reef in Brazil, where scientists may find new species of plant and animal life.  As we observe all the ways Your gifts of love and talent are present in our world, our amens become a celebration of Your promise to be with us always, and so we shout with joy:

Amen!  On this we can depend.

As we witness the pain of Your beloved children and the abuse of Your beloved creation, our amens turn to pleas for Your intervention.  The consequences of humanity’s mistreatment of the earth continue to spread as more landslides plague Latin America and South America, including a landslide in Maniales, Colombia that left at least 17 dead, while victims of Cyclone Debbie in Australia and New Zealand continue struggling to recover from flooding and damage.  Our abuse of one another reveals the sinfulness of our human hearts.  As of now, 29 people have died during protests and counter-protests in Venezuela in the wake of a political struggle over separation of powers.  A wave of violence in the Laikipia region of Kenya in recent weeks has left damage to property and people, including the shooting of well-known conservationist Kuki Gallmann.  Decisions from the Supreme Court of the US have made way for a series of hurried judicial executions in Arkansas, including the first double execution in 16 years.  As our hearts break at the suffering and injustice in our world, our amens become a reminder of Your promises of a just and joy-filled future, and so we cry out to You:

Amen!  May it be so.

As we watch for signs of Your Spirit at work in the world, our amens ascend as hopeful reminders of Your loving presence and the seeds of Your kingdom that are being planted all around us.  The provincial government of Ontario, Canada, is tackling poverty with a test program which gives poor people a basic income, an initiative similar to one launched in Finland earlier this year.  The potential for compassionate and discerning governments can be glimpsed in Vietnam, where a hostage situation resulting from a dispute over land rights ended with the safe release of all hostages, along with a promise from local authorities to investigate and re-examine local land use policies.  On Earth Day over 600 marches and protests took place around the world, as individuals and groups used their voices to highlight the importance of science for improving lives and protecting our fragile planet.  As we witness these small ways that Your kingdom breaks into our world, our amens become a song of hope that love will prevail, and so we exclaim:

Amen!  It will certainly be like this.

Hear the amens of our lips and our hearts this day and always, O God.  Bring reassurance to those who plead, joy to those who celebrate, and comfort to those who mourn.  In faithfulness to Your promise to hear our prayers, bring us help and hope as we cry, sing, shout, and pray without ceasing, in the name of Your Son, Jesus Christ.

Amen and amen.

World News This Week in Prayer — Thursday, March 23, 2017

Jeremiah 17:8  New International Version (NIV)

They will be like a tree planted by the water that sends out its roots by the stream.
It does not fear when heat comes; its leaves are always green.
It has no worries in a year of drought and never fails to bear fruit.

Our prayers come before you to implore for the patient work of strengthening our connection to you. Of the life-saving, life-building water you offer us; that we will be both steadfast and resourceful in facing the challenges before us.

The United Nations and many others warn us that climate change has moved us into unknown ranges, give us, we pray, the things we need:

Compassion for those who are disrupted and displaced,

Wisdom to assess danger,

Persistence to ameliorate.

Where the scourge of hunger destroys hope and decency:

In South Sudan where 270,000 children are suffering from severe malnutrition and 4.9 million souls are severely food insecure.

In Somalia, Kenya and Ethiopia with more than 14 million people are food insecure.

In Syria, where 9.4 million people are in need of food assistance.

In North Korea, where hidden economic hardships and famine endure.

In far too much of childhood in far too many places.

Give us, we pray, generosity, in funds where that is possible and in spirit that is always possible. Where greener approaches to energy, in particular in sustainable forestry practices and ‘green charcoal’ for your world where a third of your children depend on fuel wood daily, give us, we pray, hearts open to the misery of hunger, minds open to the rigors of analysis, and muscular spirits fortified by that vision you have shared with us.

Nowruz is a holiday for the first day of spring, celebrated for more than 3,000 years in the Balkans, the Black Sea Basin, the Caucasus, Central Asia, the Middle East and other regions and now included for all of us in the UNESCO Representative List of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. Bakers make a special cookie on that occasion.

Feed us, we pray, with that cookie in the place the poet Rumi described as, “Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and right doing,” there, where the strong trees are built from drops of holy water.  Amen

World News This Week in Prayer – Thursday, Oct. 13, 2016

Pray without ceasing…Becoming more infused with the nature and Spirit of God as we pray… Taking on the attributes of God as we become one with him beyond our earthly limits of time and space…

Lord as Jacob (Israel) struggled and demanded a blessing from his opponent at Peniel, may we persist and demand your gifts for all who suffer including ourselves. With broken hearts we uphold the terrified, traumatized children and people of Aleppo, Syria being bombed, starved, and deprived of food, medicine, and safety. We pray that our political leaders will find the backbone and determination to confront and stop the inhumanity of this internecine civil war.

Prince of Peace, let your peace vanquish the evil let loose in your world on your people.

Violence takes so many forms, whether trolling online, sexual harassment daily of women in Morocco; in fact, throughout your world even in schools in the UK and USA; the denigration of anyone who is different from what the abusers claim is ‘normal,’ when even a US Presidential candidate could boast of sexual assault on women. We pray for those too who are threatened and even killed because of their sexual orientation.

Loving God, your merciful love is wider and deeper than we can ever imagine. Free us to be channels of that love where we are.

We pray for the millions of silent marchers in Maharashtra, India over the past 6-weeks highlighting the need for equality of opportunity and an end to cronyism and corruption depriving the Dalits and Tribal people of justice and freedom.

We give thanks for the $5 a month health scheme in Kenya offering the chance of medical treatment formerly beyond most Kenyans.

We give thanks for those working to alleviate the suffering of millions from the hurricanes ravaging Latin America, the Caribbean, and parts of the USA;  the starvation and destitution and lack of medical care in so many countries from Venezuela, Yemen, Iraq and millions of refugees throughout the world. We pray for those children struggling to survive in refugee camps and avoid being sold into child marriage or sex trafficking. Let us cry out loud that the hundreds of children who could be reunited with relatives settled in countries like the UK can be moved quickly from the ‘jungle camp’ in Calais, France, before it is demolished at the end of the year.

Risen Lord Jesus, who came to your friends when all their hope was gone: come to us in the dark times. Come to those who despair, that they may feel your risen presence in their hearts.

Give light to those who sit in darkness. Cast down those who perpetrate violence and evil. Forgive our weakness and fear and help us remember you have given us a spirit of courage. Guide our way into the way of peace making and peace brokering.

Help us to live our faith, and express your love in our lives in all we do.  AMEN.

 

World News This Week in Prayer – Thursday, September 8, 2016

Remember, O God.
Remember how you, O God, were determined to kill the Israelites
whom you had brought out of Egypt,
because they had turned against you and worshiped other gods.
Remember how Moses called you to account?
How he reminded you that you had made promises of faithfulness
to Abraham, Isaac, and Israel?
Remember…that you remembered. And changed your mind.
And abandoned the disaster you had planned to bring on your people,
and let them live.
(Exodus 32:7-14)

Remind us too, O God, of all the promises of faithfulness we have made to one another.
Let the memories of the promises – of kinship, of friendship, of business relationships, of mutual responsibility, of national and international peace –
let those memories outweigh all the ways we have turned against one another.

Let it be the memories of the promises of faithfulness, that sway the decisions of leaders and peoples:

  • In Syria, where the opposition has suggested a transition plan toward free elections
  • In Hong Kong, where youth protest leaders won seats on the Legislative Council – only to have China respond by warnings that anyone who speaks in favor of Hong Kong independence will be punished
  • In South Sudan, that has agreed to allow more peace keepers into the country
  • In Ethiopia, as political violence continues to delay the distribution of aid to four million people hit by drought and floods
  • In Kenya, where the new Community Land Bill establishes a means for impoverished nomadic communities to acquire titles to their ancestral lands – a process that experts hope will help end land conflicts, boost development and improve investor relations
  • In Colombia, after the FARC rebel group postponed its meeting to ratify a peace agreement with the government for another week
  • In Gabon, where President Ali Bongo’s narrow election victory has stirred up fears of violence

Let it be the memories of the longing for faithfulness, that color our prayers for those who have died:

  • For Mother Teresa of Calcutta, declared a saint this week in a canonization Mass held by Pope Francis in the Vatican
  • For Phyllis Schlafly, who died this week after decades of being one of the most prominent leaders of the conservative Christian anti-feminist movement in the United States
  • For all whom we remember this weekend, on the 15th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the U.S. – the terrorists, the innocent, the rescuers, the lives that touched so many nations

Make us into your own image, O God.
Make us creatures of memory – not of memories of betrayals and distrust,
but, like you,  of faithfulness promised from age to age.

Amen.

World News This Week in Prayer – Thursday, July 14, 2016

There is a terrifying passage in ‘I and Thou’ by the Jewish mystic Martin Buber in which God says ‘I have sunk my hearing in the deafness of mortals’.  If this should be even partly true what a tremendous responsibility it places upon us to listen, to listen to each other with our whole attention, with our hearts, but what a difficult thing to do. ~ Elizabeth Bassett in “Beyond the Blue Mountains: Wisdom and Compassion on Living and Dying” (p. 93)

Without forgiveness there can be no future for a relationship between individuals or within and between nations… Resentment and anger are bad for your blood pressure and digestion… My humanity is bound up in yours, for we can only be human together. ~ Archbishop Desmond Tutu

The news recently has been a cataloged of ever greater misery, tragedy, horror, and violence depicting the broken relationships between groups and nations. Hurt breeds resentment and violence arising from a sense of frustrated helplessness. This makes the truth of the essential need to truly listen to each other haunting. Challenge and inspire me. I can only hope to do this through the grace and power of the Holy Spirit to enable me to fulfill, however falteringly, the command of the risen Christ, “Follow me!”

LET GOD…be Parent…speak…liberate me from my prisons…direct my path…infuse me with grace and love.

How do we reconcile God’s grace and love with our world where at least 80 are dead in Nice (pron. Neece), France as a result of a rampage driver, weaponry, and a hate-filled heart? Who did this? Why? What matter does it make? Hate and violence and death… Death and violence and hate…

  • The killings between black and white, police and citizens in the U.S.A. and in Kenya;
  • Bombings and murder of Christians and other minority faiths in Iraq;
  • The seizing of Christian villages by Kurds;
  • The bombings and warfare in South Sudan;
  • The territorial advancement by China onto militarized coral reefs and artificial islands in the South China Sea as platforms for their nuclear arms;
  • Over a thousand people have ‘disappeared’ without trace and 40,000 have been arrested and tortured in the last 3 years in Egypt according to Amnesty International;
  • Hunger and lack of food in Venezuela that is being tackled by the army because it is so pervasive.

Lord, help us to persevere in the face of so many discouragements to do whatever little bit of good we can wherever we are. Together these small acts form channels for your love and grace to be freed to transform our brokenness and overwhelm evil. Lord hear us and bless us.

With a new government and a second female Prime Minister installed in the UK, we pray for the challenges to be faced together, from people of very differing viewpoints and convictions, so that the good of the country – as well as bridge-building to repair shaken if not broken relationships with other groups and countries – can be undertaken in honesty and integrity.

We pray that all those, everywhere, may listen to each other before leaping into superficial response and action. Our heavy use of social media often makes this a default position rather than pausing, reflecting, and even daring to take time to pray… We continue to pray for the often bitter and divisive presidential electoral campaign in the U.S.A. So often at times like this we seem to revert to appealing to the lowest common denominator instead of offering a vision of the best… Forgive us when we get seduced by the attractiveness of power – thinking it glamorous rather than often seedy and corrupting.

Remind us, O God:

Good is stronger than evil; love is stronger than hate; light is stronger than darkness; life is stronger than death. Victory is ours, through him who loves us…Child of God, known by name, and whose very hairs are numbered. Praise and adore God and thank him for ever and ever. ~ Archbishop Desmond Tutu in “An African Prayer Book”

LET ME…be son or daughter…listen…walk out of my prisons through opened doors…follow your guidance…open up my being to your grace and love…Study and imitate…the perfect sonship of Jesus the Christ…the universal brother…or all other sons and daughters.

Amen.