we thank you for filling
the vastness of the universe and the inhabited world
with creative power
and for sustaining it with your immeasurable goodness.
We pray for Christians of all churches:
Grant them the courage
of a faith that believes you govern the world,
let them hear your liberating word,
and move them to act on others’ behalf.
We pray for our threatened and broken world:
Turn aside all powers that would destroy it.
Convict all who work
in the areas of science and technology, economics and politics
of their responsibility for advancing human worth.
Grant to all who are committed
to the peaceful coëxistence of persons and peoples
the assurance that their work is not in vain.
We pray for those to whom the heavens seem closed,
whose questions go unanswered,
and whose lives are characterized by emptiness.
Help those who are bowed down to stand.
Take from the narrow-minded their fear of new horizons.
Open to those who covet the past a glimpse of your future.
Speak your word of atonement to the quarrelsome
that they may dare reconciliation.
We praise you, O God—Creator, Christ, and Holy Spirit—
for you care for all you have made,
your redeem our lives,
and you remain present in your world.
Hear these prayers,
for we offer them in the Name of Jesus Christ our Lord,
who with you and the Holy Spirit,
lives and reigns as one God, forever and ever. Amen.
Adapted from the German Reformed Liturgy
