Holy and eternal God, we come before You, humbled by the mercy You have shown us in these last days and months. From Your throne, You have borne witness to our less than loving behavior, our harsh rhetoric of the election season, and our insatiable desire to ensure that the balance of power tips in our favor.
Remind us again that the mellifluent words, the most convincing arguments are but a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal if they are not grounded in love.
Even if our certitude and sureness, our knowledge and conviction are enough to move mountains, if we do not love both our neighbor and our adversary, all our success amounts to nothing.
Teach us again how to be patient and kind, neither envious nor boastful, arrogant or rude. Wherever we stand, may we not insist things go our way, nor hold a grudge when they don't.
In Your truth, show us how to bear all things, believe all things, hope all things, and endure all things; and, above all, to strive to be bearers of the greatest of all things: love.
In Your merciful name we pray. Amen.
Paul uses the example of differing opinions about food and days among the believers [that they] should not despise or judge one another. Note that he does not advise them to find a happy medium between the contending opinions or to average the two extremes into a compromise. On the contrary, he admonished that “everyone be fully convinced in his own mind.” He declares that God is able to make both stand, since both of them are serving the Lord in obedience to their individual convictions of His will... Each of us has to find personally what is the will of God for his own life, and let all others meet their responsibility to do the same... For God, by giving different commands to many, and putting them together according to His plan, shall accomplish ultimately His complete will.
—Kokichi Kurosaki
Join us for an open house to introduce the new Interfaith Staff Prayer Room (467 Cannon) – which will be open for staff (and interns) to use for prayer, meditation and quiet time. For information – staffprayerroom@mail.house.gov