A completed year is about to end, and a new year is about to begin. The world seems less unified now than it did a year ago, and it was far from unified then. What went wrong? Why can’t we get together? If the western, Christianized world is to make peace with the easternized, Muslim world, it is incumbent on our side, who feel somewhat less threatened than the Muslims, to take the first steps in the human re-unification process. To ponder what that means, let us, with New Year’s confidence, worship God.
Pastoral Prayer
From the beginning of each year to its end, Thou art with us in the march of days, O God. All time is Thy time, even though our time is only the time during which each of us shall live. Help us to make the best possible use of the time we have, and to effect whatever changes for the better we personally are able to accomplish.
We pray for leaders of nations throughout the world who are faced with the largest movement of refugees, most of whom are Muslims, that the world has ever seen. The political, economic, and cultural costs of trying to re-settle these people are enormous, and the will of the people in most nations to provide support for the re-settlement is tenuous at best. Grant wisdom, courage, understanding, and the powers of persuasion to the heads of state of every country where refugees are trying to get in. We pray that in particular for the leaders of Jordan, Lebanon, and Turkey, and for the Chancellor of Germany and the Presidents of France and the United States of America.
When the fear of terrorism is understandably so great, and the willingness to assist the politically and religiously dispossessed is therefore so diminished, we pray that the leaders of Christianity and Islam themselves may somehow also offer direction on how to overcome the natural divisions which are so apparent to us. Guide us, O Thou great Jehovah, pilgrims as all of us are, passing through this barren land. We pray also for other peoples whose problems are far more personal than corporate in nature: for the poor, the sick, the forgotten, for prisoners and fugitives, and for all who seek to alleviate problems of such people. We offer our prayers in the name of Jesus, whose life and teachings have led us unto Thee, Lord God. Now we pray together in words Jesus first used with his disciples, saying, Our Father….