12 | Instrument of Peace

Dear Lord,

Everywhere I look, I find examples of stress, tumult, violence.  We live in a world torn and weary, desperate and struggling.  We need your peace.  Please play your peace on our hearts.  Soothe our scarred souls with your sacred song.

 

An Instrument of Your Peace

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace;
where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
and where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master,
grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;
to be understood, as to understand;
to be loved, as to love;
for it is in giving that we receive,
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to Eternal Life.

Amen.

Francis of Assisi

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace today.  When sibling squabble, help me to lead them back to love.  When bullies torment, help me to build bridges of understanding.  When stress strangles, give me words of comfort and hope.  When anger boils over, show me how to put out the fire and pull pardon out of the ashes.

In all those areas I do not reach in my daily doings, I pray for your peace.  In our inner cities burdened with poverty, violence, drugs, despair.  In our struggling schools battling apathy, unfunded mandates, and increasingly diverse needs that outweigh ever-diminishing resources.  In war-torn countries.  In regions that don't respect everyone's civil rights.  In homes violated by domestic violence.  In hearts ravaged by mental illness.  In hospitals that cannot heal every hurt.

Oh, Lord, these cries for peace overwhelm me.  There is too much pain in this world.  Help me to remember that I can make a difference — a small but important difference — by embracing your peace and sharing it with those in my midst.  Help me to soothe my small corner of the world with your serenity.  Make your peace in me be contagious, catching on and calming those around me.  May these ripples of your redemption radiate and reach and relax so many stressed-out souls.  Breath by slow breath, pardon by pardon, hope by hope, prayer by prayer, may your peace conquer all.

Amen.

May the peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.

Philippians 4:7 (AKJV)

Where did you find peace today?  Embrace God's serene grace, and pass it on.