Prayer

God of Peace,

We recognize that our world is far from being at peace. Listening to the daily news, we hear of wars, shootings, power struggles, and so much pain across the globe.  How can we find peace in our day?  Help us to answer your call and participate more in your love, that we might cooperate in creating a more peaceful world, one community at a time, starting with our own. With each peaceful action, allow us to know that it is through your inspiration that we do so.  For the peace of our world. Amen.

Prayer

Living God,

Life is so precious, and each day is truly a gift freely given to us and for us, to be shared joyfully with others.  During this National Blood Donor Month, help us to be mindful of the importance of each life.  Whether we can donate blood, or support this effort in another way, remind us daily how precious our lives are to you and to each other.  Help us to reach out to others through this love, allowing them to know what their lives mean to those around them.  In love and joy, we pray. Amen.

Prayer

God of all,

More and more each day we see the influence of artificial intelligence in our lives, whether through our phones and devices that keep us “connected”  or through so many new applications affecting our work. It can be scary if we allow it to be. Yet if we are wise and proactive, we know we can guide the use of such tools to enhance the lives of many, especially those we care for each day in our clinics and hospitals and wider communities.  Help us, therefore, to leverage our technologies in service to the greater good of humanity and to bring good help to those in need. Amen.

Prayer

God of equality,

You created everyone equal, and you love everyone equally.  Martin Luther King, Jr. was a man of equality. His words and actions have helped guide our world with a fresh vision of our shared dignity before you. Though we are still so far from such ideals, we thank you for Dr. King’s good example and for his urgent call to all of us, to live a life of equality and serve one another in community. For this we pray to the God who shows no partiality, Amen.

Prayer

Awesome God,

As we grow in childhood, we learn so many wonderful and amazing things that stop us in our tracks and we say “WOW!”  However, such wondrous exploration hardly needs to stop just because we reach a certain age.  Continue to show us each day how awesome you are, whether in a beautiful sunset, the beauty of a child’s smile, the frolicking of animals playing, or in the silence of the night sky.  Just as we don’t stop learning after childhood, inspire us to continue discovering your awesome presence all around us today.   In anticipation of our next ‘WOW,’ we pray.  Amen.

Prayer

Joyful God,

We often equate joy with a positive feeling or exterior happiness, when in reality it is far deeper than either of those can contain. Joy lies deep within our souls, and we often miss it if we focus too much on the exterior emotions. Guide us to experience that undercurrent of understanding that comes with your goodness each day, that we might experience true joy and share it with others.  Amen.

Prayer

Creator God,

The peace that comes from being in nature brings a solace to the soul. It pushes troubles aside for a time in order to experience and return to the present moment. Guide us more and more to those times of solace, where we can collect our thoughts and hear your voice in the whisper of creation, leading us through our troubles and back into a life of peace.  We ask this in your name, Amen.