Opening Prayer
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06/25/2026
Chaplain Margaret Grun Kibben
Sovereign God, you are a jealous God, and you demand our entire being and our full measure of devotion.
While we may not consider as idols the things that compete for our time or distract us from even the simplest awareness of your presence in our everyday moments, nonetheless, like gods in our lives, our desires have become more directive and your direction less desirable.
Shine your light on those hidden affections that have, if we’re honest with ourselves, overshadowed, or even eclipsed, our devotion to you.
Help us take inventory of the things that have wended their way into our very being: our pursuit for success, our desire for approval, our comfort with a certain manner of living. Call to our awareness how our fear of rejection, our paralyzing anger over our own shortcomings, and our cowardice in the face of evil, have become stumbling blocks to the righteousness you demand of us.
How easily we have installed these false gods into our daily lives, allowing them to govern our behavior, to influence our decisions, and to stand in the way of our faithfulness to you.
Enable us to turn our backs on these idols. For no thing, no one, is like you, O Lord. You alone are great, and your name only is mighty in power.
In the strength of your holy name, we return to you and entrust into your keeping the living of this day. Amen.
Jeremiah 10:6
Ezekiel 14:1–6