The Office of the Chaplain United States House of Representatives

Opening Prayer

05/11/2026
Chaplain Margaret Grun Kibben

Holy God, you have made yourself known to us and yet you remain beyond our comprehension. Despite all our attempts to seek answers, master information, and solve even our most mundane problems, we come, more often than not, face to face with our finitude, our fallibility, and our failures.

Were we honest with ourselves, we would acknowledge that what we are searching for are answers that can only be found in you. That within our hearts is an awareness, an echo of you, which we long to see, hear, and understand more fully.

While you may remain a mystery, you are never far from us. As the psalmist professed, “You hem us in, behind and before, and lay your hand upon us.”

Though such knowledge is too wonderful for us to fully attain, nonetheless, you are not unknown to us. In your hands are our lives; in your care is the living of this day.

And in your sovereign name, we are bold to lay before you all that we do not yet know, entrusting it into your keeping. Amen.

Psalm 139:5–6, Acts 17:22–31

Thought of the Week

God is not proud...He will have us even though we have shown that we prefer everything else to Him.

—C.S. Lewis

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