Posts Tagged ‘beauty’

July 4th, 2022

July 4, 2022

Lord we thank you for our freedom and your many gifts.

O beautiful for spacious skies for amber waves of grain.*

We thank you for opportunities to grow and for a prosperous land. Help us to share so that all might thrive.

For purple mountains majesty, above the fruited plain.

We thank you for the beauty and abundance with which we are surrounded. Let it inspire and encourage us to reach out to others and share your love.

America, America, God shed his grace on thee.

We thank you for your forgiveness and mercy. May we extend that to others, forsaking tribalism, factionalism, and hyper-partisanship. Help us to love our neighbors as ourselves. (Luke 10:25-37; Galatians 3:26-29).

And crowned thy good with brotherhood, from sea to shining sea.

We thank you Lord for the many diverse peoples that make up our country. May we see the richness of your creation in this diversity and resist those who would exploit our differences and sow division.

Help us Lord to use our freedoms wisely, overcoming evil with good and serving one another with love. (Romans 12:21; Galatians 5:13).

Guide us towards peace, O Lord.

Amen

*italicized lines from the hymn America The Beautiful

Other July 4 Posts:

Freedom, 2021

Preserving Our Liberties, 2020

Pray For Our Country, 2015

Freedom From Fear, 2013

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Seeing

May 16, 2021

Widen our lens O Lord, well beyond the narrow aperture of our phones.

Help us to lift our heads and see the beauty and the wonder of the world around us, and know that you are with us, that we are not alone nor in charge.

Help us to see your love and and forgiveness in the people around us, so that we too might respond with compassion and mercy.

Help us to see the many revelations of your grace that surround us, inviting us to move beyond our resentful and quarrelsome ways.

Open our eyes Lord to the possibilities of our future were we to work together.

Amen

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Giving Thanks

November 29, 2020

Note: Italicized text below is from the hymn “For The Fruit of All Creation”, by Fred Pratt Green (1901).

“. . . for the plowing, sowing, reaping, silent growth while we are sleeping, future needs in earth’s safekeeping, thanks be to God.”

We give thanks in this season for hope and healing, for friends and family, for cooking and cleaning and eating, for tears and laughter.

We give thanks for the beauty that surrounds us in plants and people and earth and sky and the many small crafts and things that furnish our homes, reminding us of those who have gone before.

We give thanks for the often overlooked evidence of your grace throughout our lives in ways large and small and in between. We thank you for your patient presence O Lord.

“. . . for the wonders that astound us, for the truths that sill confound us, most of all that love has found us, thanks be to God.”

Amen

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