For May 9, 2021 Prayer for Peace and Peace Moment with introduction
Introduction
Each week we will hear a Peace Moment in addition to the prayer for peace. Hopefully all will be blessed with these devotional thoughts.
This week’s Peace Moment and Prayer are by Steve Bolie.
Music changes in popularity and acceptance. Past generations loved big bands, Perry Como, Frank Sinatra and so on. Some even loved Lawrence Welk. Fans of the Beatles and the rest of the British Invasion have been supplanted by punk rock, other genres and now rap. Times change and so do tastes in music. Even the 1960’s civil rights anthem “We Shall Overcome” is in our hymnal as CCS 261. When we sang it at campfires in the 1960’s we felt so edgy and contemporary.
Today’s theme “Sing” is based on Psalm 98: “O sing to the Lord a new song, for he has done marvelous things. His right hand and his holy arm have gotten him victory.”
The psalm of joyous praise concludes with the promise of justice: “… sing together for joy at the presence of the Lord, for he is coming to judge the earth. He will judge the world with righteousness, and the peoples with equity.”
The promise of the ancient psalm is echoed in the still contemporary hymn “We shall overcome (injustice and racism), we shall walk hand in hand and we shall live in peace some day.” Our prayer for peace is that “some day” will come soon.
Please join me in the prayer for peace.
Overcoming God,
You weep for the poor, displaced, mistreated, and diseased of the world because of their unnecessary suffering. Like you, we lament the causes of injustice and seek enlightenment that we may better understand our part in peace for the world.
We do not want to just speak and sing of Zion. We would, love, and share as Zion: those who strive to be visibly one in Christ, among whom there are no poor or oppressed.
This day we offer ourselves as instruments of peace in our world. Allow us to be partners in overcoming, not just someday but now. Open our ears to hear the pleading of mothers and fathers in all nations who desperately seek a future of hope for their children.
Hear our concerns and our willingness, we pray in Jesus name. Amen. Additional ideas for the Prayer for Peace and be found in the worship helps and the Daily Prayer for Peace service offered at the Temple in Independence, Missouri, USA, at www.CofChrist.org/daily-prayer-for-peace.