Prayer for Today
ALMIGHTY God and Father of all men, we thy children thank thee that the turmoil and agony of the world today are leading us to a clearer knowledge that the truths our Lord Jesus Christ taught us are the very basis of our lives as men. We thank thee for our growing understanding that those who reject their spiritual heritage make for themselves a prison house.
We thank thee for the knowledge of our human brotherhood that thou hast revealed to us during our long and upward journey, through many of thy children who have heard thy voice and more especially through our Lord Jesus Christ. We thank thee for the fruits of this knowledge; for recognition of the value of the humblest human being, for respect for the individual man. We thank thee for the freedom of the spirit that has come from this recognition and respect; for liberty and democracy and for the desire for peace; for compassion and the capacity for forgiveness, and for mercy. We thank thee for the love of truth that thou hast taught us, for the hunger for justice, for the scientific spirit that cannot live without respect for truth. We thank thee for kindness to women and for tenderness to children; for the sense of honor, and for the love of fair play. But most of all we thank thee for the knowledge that thy purpose embraces all men; that thy love extends to all men, and that in thy love and our response to it lies our hope of salvation as individual men and as a people.
These are all fair and lovely gifts. They are the lights thou hast lit to guide us. Forgive us that so often we have disregarded them to turn away into the darkness. Forgive us that in our personal lives we have so often been unfaithful to our heritage.
Give us strength now, Father of all mercies, to protect this heritage in any way we may be called upon to serve. Give us courage to act and to endure; give us patience. Comfort us in pain and in bereavement with a sense of thy presence. Grant us to feel, whatever may befall us, that underneath are the everlasting arms. Light our way with the sure knowledge that in thy good time the right will prevail. And if it please thee to give us victory in this struggle by right of force, grant us the wisdom to make that victory a triumph of the spirit.
And let us not forget, O Father, either at that time or today that the German people are thy children and our brothers. Let us not forget this when the world lays down its arms. Let us not forget that we no more than they can base an enduring peace on force. When this time comes, help them and us, O Heavenly Father, to join hearts and minds and hands to build thy kingdom upon earth.
Hasten this day, O Lord Most High. Strengthen and comfort thy children in Germany who have followed the light of thy truth in spite of persecution and in the face of death. Bring light to those who sit in darkness. Still their minds that they may hear the voice of thy spirit. Let those who have made virtues of hardness and violence, treachery and cruelty, see these evils for what they are, as shackles upon the human spirit, and let them know thy truth. Strengthen them that they may seek thy way. Let tenderness and mercy and love of all that is good and beautiful flower in the hearts of this people, and bring them with us into unity with thee, through Jesus Christ our Lord.