JanBeek

Just As God Embraces Us…

… we need to embrace God! We need to lean on Him and let Him enfold us in His loving care. We need God now more than ever! Feel God hugging you as you reach out to Him.

Today during our ZOOM worship service, Rev. Steve Hundley delivered a powerful Pastoral Prayer. As he explained to us (the two dozen members of the Madison Valley Presbyterian Church in Ennis, MT who logged in) during his introduction to the prayer, “I am relying heavily on the prayers of the Reverend Dr. Peter Marshall, who was elected Chaplain of the United States Senate on Jan. 4, 1947.”

PASTORAL PRAYER: 

“We know, Almighty God, that in this desperate hour, we as a nation need You.  We need Your strength, Your guidance, Your wisdom.  These are problems far greater than any human wisdom can solve, for what shall our leaders do in such an hour?  May Your wisdom and Your guidance come upon the President, the President elect, the Senators and Congress men and women, to whom have been entrusted leadership.  May the responsibility in the midst of this pandemic and civil unrest lie heavily on their hearts, until they are ready to acknowledge their helplessness and turn to You.  Give them courage, and the moral integrity to confess that they don’t know what to do.  Only then can they lead us as a nation beyond human wisdom to You, who alone has the answers.

Strengthen the courage of all our elected representatives—sincere men and women who want to do what is right, if only they can be sure what is right.  Make it plain to them, O Lord.  And then, start them out on the right way, for You know that we are hard to turn.

Forgive them for the blunders they have committed, the compromises they have made.  Give to them to courage to admit mistakes.  Take away from us, both as a nation and individuals, that stubborn pride which, followed by conceit, imagines itself to be above and beyond criticism.

Save our leaders, O God, from themselves and from their friends—even as You have saved them from their enemies. 

• Let no personal ambition blind them to their opportunities.
• Help them to give battle to hypocrisy wherever they find it.
• Give them divine common sense and a selflessness that shall make them think of their call to service and not gain.

May they have the courage to lead the people of this Republic, considering unworthy the expediency of following the people.

Lord, we pray for the families of the thousands who have died this week alone of this terrible and relentless virus.  We pray too, for the families of those who lost their lives and were injured in our nation’s capital.  Bring an end to the violence that would cost just one of our citizens their lives.  We pray for a peaceful transition of leadership, in our nation’s capital in the coming weeks.    

We pray for those within our own community who have contracted and been exposed to the Corona virus.  Heal them and protect them from any long-term effects of the virus.

We pray too for those people whose needs You place on our hearts. Hear and answer, we pray, that You will forgive us all our unworthiness; cleansing us from every ignoble thought and unworthy disposition that we may be renewed in spirit and mind and heart, through Jesus Christ, our Lord… Amen.”

Thank you for visiting JanBeek today.
I will post my sermon notes a little later.