MEComposing

I have actually been looking for this prayer for so long now... I cannot explain how or why I was touched by it but it does give me pause as to those things I've started believing were MY options...

Thought you might enjoy this interesting prayer given in Kansas at the opening session of their Senate. It seems prayer still upsets some people. When Minister Joe Wright was asked to open the new session of the Kansas Senate, everyone was expecting the usual generalities, but this is what they heard:

'Heavenly Father, we come before you today to ask your forgiveness and to seek your direction and guidance. We know Your Word says, 'Woe to those who call evil good,' but that is exactly what we have done.

We have lost our spiritual equilibrium and reversed our values.

We have exploited the poor and called it the lottery.

We have rewarded laziness and called it welfare.

We have killed our unborn and called it choice.

We have shot abortionists and called it justifiable.

We have neglected to discipline our children, and called it building self esteem.

We have abused power and called it politics.

We have coveted our neighbor's possessions and called it ambition.

We have polluted the air with profanity and pornography, and called it freedom of expression.

We have ridiculed the time-honored values of our forefathers and called it enlightenment.

Search us, Oh, God, and know our hearts today; cleanse us from every sin, and set us free. Amen!'


The response was immediate. A number of legislators walked out during the prayer in protest. In 6 short weeks, Central Christian Church, where Rev. Wright is pastor, logged more than 5,000 phone calls with only 47 of those calls responding negatively. The church is now receiving international requests for copies of this prayer from India , Africa, and Korea ..

Commentator Paul Harvey aired this prayer on his radio program, 'The Rest of the Story,' and received a larger response to this program than any other he has ever aired. With the Lord's help, may this prayer sweep over our nation and wholeheartedly become our desire so that we again can be called 'one nation under God.'




Maybe I like this prayer so much because I am aware that we are so governed with the pursuit of convenience... and it is far easier for us to rationalize things, and seek alternative explanations and push the envelope in everything just to avoid sadness, growing old, broken hearts, boredom, illness, etc.

Are people happier and enjoying more love and richer relationships today? I don't know. But what does the fact of childhood and teenage suicides tell us?

*~*

And in the meantime... what kind of society is America coming to be where prayer is deemed offensive just because there could be non-Christians around? Where you can't even pray openly anymore lest it offends someone who doesn't (even in schools, kid are becoming less tolerant of religion)? And why would non-Christians and atheists get offended when somebody else prays?