A Prayer for the Peacemakers
Lord, help us to recognize those that are fighting with the same purpose and goals; recognizing that they may fight with different tactics. Though those tactics may look different help us to unite under a common purpose. We can be united in purpose while using different tactics. We can unite in a message and purpose without condoning the tactics. Help us to stay faithful to tactics that maintain integrity, that reflect you in each of our hearts. Help us to recognize your heart, your words, your purpose, Lord. Help us to recognize that EVEN those who do not believe in you, or who believe differently than we do, can reflect you, can fight for your purpose. You are almighty and all-powerful. Your prevenient grace is capable of placing your convictions in the hearts of those who do not recognize your voice. Help us recognize your fruit Lord, your work. Help us to recognize your heart and voice and wisdom in those who look and speak differently. I believe strongly that you are calling us to reckon with the fact that there are entire groups of people that we as the church have contributed to devaluing. Help us to recognize your image in all people, Lord. Help us recognize our roles in dismantling the worldliness that has entered Your Body. Help convict our hearts that we will no longer be able to remain complacent or complicit in the devaluing systems and practices within our churches, so that we can be better practitioners and examples in the world. Help stir our hearts to cry out, to grieve where we have produced fruit that doesn’t look like the fruit of your vine, Lord. Help stir us past inaction into speaking and standing and pushing against systems and practices that marginalize any of your children.
Lord, I pray for reckoning. Teach us to cry out to the dry bones; to stir them into awakening. For reckoning cannot occur without awakening, Lord. Bring your people to reckoning that it may bring us into the unity of lament. Lord, let us cry out as one.
You call us to lead with empathy and compassion. But those aren’t possible without proximity without entering into and sharing the discomfort. Lord, make the discomfort unavoidable, that those who seek you and know you may know the hurt and pain of those who have been pushed to the margins; that it might grieve our hearts the way it grieves yours, past lament into change; past acknowledgement into repentance, and past repentance into CHANGE; into recognizing and valuing the worth of each person you have created.
And in the midst, Lord, I pray for your wisdom and discernment, for your rest and renewal. Peacemaking is not for the faint-hearted. So, guard our hearts, Lord. That they may remain tender and supple. Help us to discern between your righteous anger and resentment. Protect them from hardening out of disappointment and weariness. Encourage us with glimmers of progress. Energize us with your joy. Embolden us with hope. Enrobe us with your peace and love.
In Jesus Name
Amen