Prayer for the State of Maryland, 1/30/18

Prayer for the Maryland State Senate and State of Maryland

                            Tuesday, January 30, 2018, 10:00 am
                       Rev. Dr. C. Anthony Hunt, Senior Pastor
Epworth Chapel United Methodist Church, Baltimore, MD

            O God, from the rising of the sun, until the going down of the same, your name is worthy to be praised.  We gather this morning as your people, and we are grateful for this opportunity that you’ve afforded for us to be together.  We are grateful for the opportunities that you afford each of us to serve you and serve your people.

For the state of Maryland, we offer thanks to you.  For our nation, we are grateful - for with all that is with us and before us, we know that you have been our help in ages past, and that you are our hope for days to come, and we know that your divine and mighty hand is on the nation and world as it has been in ages past.  So, O God, we pray that you will please continue to guide our feet as we run the race that has been set before us.

On this day, O God, we pray that you will bless every hamlet and hill of this great state.  Bless every community where your people live, every school where our children learn, the fields and grounds where they play, and the places where your people gather and work. 

We pray especially for those across our state who bear the burdens of need and inequality due to lack of food, shelter healthcare, and substandard education.  Help us to hear and heed the words of the ancient prophet to “love kindness, do justice, and walk humbly with you.” (Micah 6:8)

For those who serve and lead this great state and nation in elective and appointive office – we pray that you will endow each with reasonable portions of vision, strength, wisdom, compassion, courage, integrity and justice.  Help all of us to see all that we seek to accomplish in the light of your concern for the common good among us.

And let us realize the words of yet another ancient prophet that “justice would roll down as waters, and righteousness as a mighty stream.” (Amos 5:24)                                                       

Where dreams may be diminished and hopes frayed among us, help us to heed the sentiments of the great poet Langston Hughes to “hold fast to dreams, for when dreams die, life is a broken winged bird that cannot fly.”  Indeed, where dreams may be diminished and hopes frayed among us, help us to “hold fast to dreams, for when dreams go, life is a barren field, frozen with snow.”  Amen.