Today in our prayers for the people of Dominica.

Prayer for Peace

Fred W. Winterton

Our Loving Parent,

We are thankful for our access to you through the grace and reconciliation of your son, Jesus Christ. We thank you for the assurance of your continuing love and concern for us through the many trials and difficulties of our lives.

As we come to you seeking peace in our troubled world, we are mindful of our many acts of inhumanity to one another, through which fear, insecurity, poverty, and brokenness have become much of our human experience. We acknowledge these as symptoms of deeper emotional causes—as extensions of our inner conflicts.

We recognize the need for repentance at personal and corporate levels, where we have often ignored the principles of relationships you have ordained for our happiness. We further recognize that in petitioning you for peace, we have no rightful claim on your mediation in our troubles while we persist in denying other persons the rights of freedom, acceptance, equality, and social justice we jealously guard for ourselves and which underline many of our problems.

Our prayer is not that you will offset the just consequences of our sinful ways but that you will open our eyes to the more peaceful pursuits of life and engender in our hearts a more compassionate attitude toward the needs of those who are oppressed by circumstances beyond their control.

Assist also those in government roles throughout the world in affecting the necessary reforms in political, economic, and social affairs that will lessen the tensions of war and hostility and establish a world community based on respect for the rights of all.

Moreover, may the peaceable presence of your Holy Spirit rule in our lives so that we will be living emissaries of peace for you in all their dimensions and interactions.

This we ask in the name of your son, Jesus Christ. Amen.