Spirit of Peace,

on this Pentecostal day, the birth of your church when your power swept through the hearts of people from different ethnicities, and languages we find it hard to celebrate. Our hearts not only weigh heavy but are filled with confusion, anger, and even despair.

As a nation we witnessed the horror of racial violence once again, the terror and murder of George Floyd and in these past weeks, months and years the list of such names only grows longer.

The video sears my brain and soul but this terror, anger, and fear is multiplied in the hearts of our black brothers and sisters many times over. In phone calls and zoom meetings I have heard it in their voices, seen it in their eyes, and felt it in their tears and righteous anger. The centuries have taken their toll. We pray Lord, that you grant them an extra measure of your loving Spirit in this time.

And Lord we have seen this fear and anger erupt into more violence, people lashing out because their hope is gone in a system that has failed them and sadly it drives us further apart. Lord we pray that no more lives be lost. We pray that we don’t heap tragedy upon tragedy. and let us resist the temptation to denigrate police forces across the country. So many of them are truly upstanding people whose mission is after your heart, “to protect and serve”.

So today we pray for peace, but not a peace of passivity; one born merely of the absence of conflict, but a peace undergirded by justice, driven by transformation, and held by love. This peace won’t come quickly or easily so we ask not so much for calm as for clarity.

The clarity which only you can provide. The clarity of actions and plans born of your Spirit of transformation. Lord we pray that you would use our anger to productive action.

Give us clarity of vision and purpose that would direct each one of us to action, action that would lead to lasting change and guide our country to your divine will-that this would be a land that can live up to its highest ideals in which every person knows it bounties, all can rely on its mercies, and everyone sees it as their calling from you to stand up for each other, help one another in times of need, and most of all to love one another, in the very same way you have loved us.

Amen.

Prayer on Pentecost
by Tom Evans
May 31, 2020