After this I looked, and there was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, robed in white, with palm branches in their hands. They cried out in a loud voice, saying, “Salvation belongs to our God who is seated on the throne, and to the Lamb!” And all the angels stood around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures, and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, singing, “Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever! Amen.”
Revelation 7:9-12
O God of all nations, we come before You, crying out for an end to violence. We confess that we have put our trust in worldly leaders, worldly understandings of power, dominance, and greed. We confess that we resort to violence instead of Your ways. Forgive us for turning to the ways of the world that we human beings created, instead of embracing the earth You made for all of us.
Guide us in our thoughts and prayers to act for peace. Help us to “depart from evil, and do good; seek peace and pursue it” (Psalm 34:14). Remind us that violence is not Your intention for us. Your intention is an abundant life.
We pray for all the nation’s leaders, that they will seek Your wisdom and guidance and work to end this violence, this war. We pray that we might seek You in the face of one another, especially in the faces of those we call enemies, and strive to end war forever.
Our ways are not Your ways, O God. Guide us away from the path of humanity to use violence and domination and fear, and into Your ways of love, justice, and peace. In the name of the Prince of Peace we pray. Amen.
Pingback: A Blindness – rogueraconteur