Daily Prayer for Peace
1:00 p.m.
Lebanon
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Call to Prayer
Lighting of Candle
Invitation
We greet you in the name of the Prince of Peace who call us to worship. Thank you for joining us. Each day in this Temple, dedicated to the pursuit of peace, we pray to God for peace in our world. In addition, each day we pray for a different country.
Today we will remember the people of Lebanon in our prayers. Lebanon is located in the Middle East, where it’s history is almost as old as the earliest evidence of humankind.
At different periods of its history, Lebanon has come under the domination of many foreign rulers. Despite foreign domination, Lebanon's mountainous terrain has provided it with a certain protective isolation, enabling it to survive with an identity all its own.
Its proximity to the sea has ensured that throughout its history
Lebanon has held an important position as a trading center. Lebanon has
a Middle Eastern culture colored by Western influences. Although Lebanon
traditionally considered itself the only Christian majority country in
the 'Arab' world, by the 1970s the Muslim population was believed to
have been greater than that of the Christians, a situation that led to
sectarian unrest and struggles for political and economic power.
Blessed is the name of our God who is mindful of us as we worship in
faith and joy.
the desert shall rejoice and blossom;
like the crocus it shall blossom abundantly.
Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened,
and the ears of the deaf unstopped;
then the lame shall leap like a deer,
and the tongue of the speechless sing for joy.
For waters shall break forth in the wilderness,
and streams in the desert;
the burning sand shall become a pool,
and the thirsty ground springs of water.
A highway shall be there,
and it shall be called the Holy Way;
the unclean shall not travel on it,
but it shall be for God's people.
No lion shall be there,
nor shall any ravenous beast come upon it,
but the redeemed shall walk there.
And the ransomed of the LORD shall return,
and come to Zion with singing.
Prayer for Peace by Wallace B. Smith, Independence, Missouri
We give thanks for your word of encouragement that enables us to face each new day. We also thank you for your word of faithfulness that gives us hope for the future. And we give thanks for your word of guidance that directs us as we seek to better understand your ways.
Gracious God, deliver us from the shallowness of our commitments, from the thousand ways our strivings separate us from each other. And most of all, deliver us from our fears that alienate us from you.
O God of faith, hear our prayer as we light our flame of peace and love at this hour and in this sacred place. May the flame here kindled grow within each heart, that all may sense more fully your spirit in the warmth of our concern for one another. Refresh us when we grow weary of opposing injustice and oppression, terrorism and war, and send us forth from this experience of dialogue and worship strengthened to bind up the wounds that afflict our world.
Grant us peace, O God - not the peace of slumber, but of quiet confidence in the triumph of your word. For the sake of all your creation, we pray. Amen.
Hymn - Lord of All Hopefulness - Hymns of the Saints #185
Please join us now, praying the Prayers of the People. During the moments of silence, you are invited to pray silently or meditate.
we cry, "How long, God, must your creation live without peace?" Bless the leaders and the people of this nation as they seek ways of peace, we pray.
May the God who is peace, the God who is hope, and the God who is love, guide us and bless us as we go forth to serve the Divine purpose created in us. Amen.