Prayer for March 9, 2022

Prayer for March 9, 2022: Please pray with me. God of peace, humanity is addicted to war and violence. But that’s probably no surprise to you. In spite of humanity’s history of trying to solve problems by way of weapons that kill each other, your message has not changed. You are a God of peace. Does humanity really understand peace? Too often we think of peace as just the absence of war. But that’s a mistake. It is assuming that war is the normal state of existence and that peace is just a temporary departure from the norm. No wonder we think that peace is some mythical destination that we never really arrive at and so we don’t have to really try it. No wonder we so easily put it aside at the first hint of complexity and difficulty. Oh how easy it is to go to our default – war and violence. Today we pray that our default be broken. And in its place that we may be moved towards trying peace – really trying it. Sticking with it. Letting it transform us and our enemies. Clearing our eyes so that we can see the image of God in others. So we can move towards your shalom peace. Amen.

Call to Action: When there is conflict, what is your first reaction – to run away from it? To fight? Or to stand with it and allow conflict to do its job – to expose what is there for what it is, to move towards truth, to be vulnerable? What would it take to commit to a way of peace?