Today in our prayers for the people of Burkina Faso.

Prayer for Peace

Hiroshi Yamada

Divine spirit, we are grateful once again that we can experience your presence in this sanctuary.

As we sit here, meditate, and sing the songs of praise at this turn of a season, we cannot help but come to appreciate the beauty of your creation and your presence among things and people around us. The wind brushes our cheeks. Fields offer their harvest.

You (surely) visited the earth and watered it, you greatly enriched it...you provided their grain. You watered its furrows abundantly...softening it with showers and blessing its growth. You crowned the year with your bounty...the meadows clothe themselves with flocks...they shout and sing together for you.—Psalm 65:9-13

Yet how often do our natural eyes blind us and place us in the center of the world? They lure us to be greedy for wealth, which never overflows our cups. Our natural eyes drive us to compete, envy, and hate, which causes us to blur our views and bruise the human souls. We are at war with the world and with one another. It is for such arrogance and self-centeredness in us that you sent us your begotten son to redeem and save us, not perish.

Forgive us our sins, and help us, O Lord, to restore our spiritual eyes which enable us to see that you are the source of love, the source of light, and of power. We are the created, and we are nothing without you. We are inter-related. We do not stand alone. Grant us spiritual eyes to see and appreciate your loving heart that has been extended to us through your creation, so that we can serve you and the world to bring peace and justice, harmony and joy.

We pray these things in the holy name of your son, Jesus Christ. Amen.