Daily Lesson for May 3, 2018

Today’s Daily Lesson is a prayer for our country on this National Day of Prayer:

Loving God of all nations and peoples,

On this National Day of prayer we thank you for your manifold gifts to us, including the gift of a nation which knows the value of the gifts of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness for all persons everywhere. We are grateful for this country, and we remember its Founders —both known and unknown, male and female, free and slave — and recall the stony road we’ve trod to arrive at where we are today. 

Yet we know we haven’t arrived quite yet. We haven’t reached our Promised Land. We know our own sins and the sins of our fathers and mothers have kept us as a nation from being what we ought to have been. We were meant to be as a light on a hill, but our light hasn’t shown as clearly or brightly as it ought. It has been diminished by our lack of love for neighbor, participation in machinations of evil, and exploitation of the earth and its people.  Help us to see our own wicked ways, O LORD, and learn to turn and repent of them.

Rekindle the flame that is within us, dear LORD.  May your lamplight lead us on our way, as we continue on the journey towards the making of a more perfect union.  Guide our feet and guard our path and protect us from all evil — foreign and domestic, from outside of and also and within ourselves. 

Help us to reach forth towards that original vision of being a City set upon a hill — a City whose foundations cannot be shaken. Let justice prevail in our courts and upon our streets. Let temperance guide our interactions with all people. Let prudence show us the right judgments. And let courage rise up to the level of our noblest convictions. Help us to remember, dear LORD, that if as a nation we wish to be great we must first be good. We know what is required of us in order to be judged good — so let us do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with you on the ways ahead. 

As for our leaders, may vice wane and virtue wax, and may the decisions they make be worthy of a government that is truly of the people, by the people, and for the people.

We the people, called by your Name and sealed by the crest of your Spirit, seek now to humble ourselves, pray, and plead your countenance. Be with us, dear LORD, and do not forsake us in our hours of need nor leave us to our own devices. We know we need your grace, your vision, your help, and your. Give us your heart, O LORD, for your people; and help us, gracious God, as we seek to live up out the meaning of our creed: one nation out of many — indivisible, with liberty, and justice for all.

So help us, God. 

Amen.