World in Prayer is seeking a few more volunteers to join our team! Each week, one writer compiles the news and crafts the accompanying prayers. The week’s editor checks the prayers for accuracy and coherence, then posts them on our website. Team members generally serve approximately once every 4-6 weeks. Requirements: an interest in international affairs and conviction that God loves all. Belief that prayer is part of what holds the world together and builds us into the people of God. A love of praying and writing. An interest in being part of this ministry and ability to commit to this kind of schedule. If this describes you, drop us a note at worldinprayer@aol.com!
___________________
To pray is to hear God’s longing for the well-being of the universe.
To pray is to weep for its sorrows and dance to its joys.
To pray is to meet the longing hearts of all God’s people
with comfort and hope and salvation.
Let us pray.
Sing with us, pray with us, long with us, through the lyrics of This is My Song*
https://youtu.be/0CuvFMwrEN0?si=3On9yFZYQbYMmRag
This is my song, Oh God of all the nations,
A song of peace for lands afar and mine.
This is my home, the country where my heart is;
Here are my hopes, my dreams, my sacred shrine.
But other hearts in other lands are beating.
With hopes and dreams as true and high as mine.
Beloved God, travelor, home-maker, pain-bearer, hold in your heart all of this night and every daytime
all those who love their nations, all those who long to make of their lands something
that feasts the dreams of all.
Hold in your heart the lands that are facing turmoil:
-
- Conflicting demands for peaceful settlement to the conflicts between Israel and Hamas, Ukraine and Russia
- Ongoing civil war in Sudan and Ethiopia
- Upcoming elections and their uncertain aftermath, in the United States and Venezuela
My country’s skies are bluer than the ocean,
And sunlight beams on cloverleaf and pine.
But other lands have sunlight too and clover,
And skies are everywhere as blue as mine.
O hear my song, Oh God of all the nations,
A song of peace for their land and for mine.
Beloved Christ, Savior of the Nations, the One who Is, and is to come, protect us from the sin
of holding ourselves, our homes, above others. Of believing others are less Beloved.
Hold in your heart those who are most endangerd:
-
- By Typhoon Gaemi, that left a trail of deaths in the Philippines and Taiwan, with hundreds of thousands being evacuated from China’s eastern seaboard
- By extreme hunger fueled by conflict, climate change, drought and economic crises. The annual State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World report, published on Wednesday, said one in 11 people globally and one in five in Africa – over 750 million total – faced chronic hunger in 2023.
- By well-meaning attempts to improve our lives that turn out to have devastating unanticipated consequences. Diclofenac, a drug used to treat sick cows in India proved deadly to the millions of vultures that fed on the carcasses; without the vultures to cleanse the land of dead animals, bacteria proliferated, killing an estimated half million people per year.
- By the wildfires raging in Canada and the United States
- By exploitation and abuse being uncovered in country after country. This week, results of a public inquiry in New Zealand were released, showing that some 200,000 children, young people and vulnerable adults were abused in state and religious care over the last 70 years
May truth and freedom come to every nation
May peace abound where strife as raged so long
That each may seek to love and build together
A world united, righting every wrong.
A world united in its love for freedom,
Proclaiming peace together in one song.
Beloved Spirit, companion, in-dweller, inspirer, sing peace within our hearts,
within our souls, among every people and nation.
Hold in your heart the peacemakers, the healers, the well-wishers:
-
- For peace officers, firefighters, medical workers, counselors
- For those who accompany the living and those who bury the dead
- For teachers and researchers, journalists and truth-tellers
- For artists and musicians who awaken our hearts
- For all who love and care and touch
That each may seek to love and build together
A world united, righting every wrong.
A world united in its love for freedom,
Proclaiming peace together in one song.
*Performed and Recorded Live by Voices of Concinnity (and audience) February 2, 2019 “This is my song” Music by Jean Sibelius (tune Finlandia) Words by Lloyd Stone 1934 (v. 1 & 2); Georgia Harkness (v. 3)
St. 3 © 1964 Lorenz Publishing Co. Sts, 1, 2 © 1934, 1962 Lorenz Publishing Co.
Leave a Reply