Today in our prayers for the people of Zambia.

Prayer for Peace

Helen Lents

Gracious God,

Your concern for the well-being of your children is a constant for which we are deeply grateful. In the best moments of our lives, we praise you and find it easy to speak of our gratitude and our sense of blessing.

When all is well it is sometimes easy to avert our eyes in blindness to the needs of others and to pretend life is good for everyone. This day we acknowledge the narrowness and self-centeredness of such an attitude. We pray for your forgiveness for our insensitivity and lack of concern. Often our slowness to comprehend and accept a personal or corporate role in alleviating the suffering and misery in the world is hindered by lack of vision. We don’t know just what we can do to bring peace and comfort into troubled lives and large areas of the world.

Lord, we do desire to respond in love and effective service to bring peaceful solutions to large and small problems and concerns. Help us to perceive our acts of greed and to focus on our own needs with the understanding of the joy that comes when sharing the bounties of life. Help us be a friend to the lonely and exercise the kind of citizenship that calls us both to serve and to encourage leaders among us who live by the God-given principles that see and value the worth of individuals.

We truly desire to be advocates for the powerless and ambassadors of peace in the world.

Bless our efforts and our commitment to peace, we pray in the name of the great peacemaker. Amen.