Prayer 5
Worship
Prayers for the Age of Technology
Object:
Dear Patient Overseer:
In the chaos of change that surrounds us, it is comforting to believe that you are present and concerned; that you have a purpose and an ultimate end toward which you are working as you interact with us. Please do not let our careless exercise of newfound freedom or our juvenile obstreperousness distract you or divert you from that purpose.
We like to think we are not going against your will: that our efforts in physical science, technology, the science of human relationships, and in our avid quest for additional knowledge, are expressions of creative impulses flowing from you. As you will have noted, however, we are not doing too well with these privileges -- these gifts of your grace.
Our efforts are unbalanced and erratic. They are producing much evil along with the good. Physical and material concerns tend to take precedence over the spiritual. Society's welfare and the welfare of persons is being subverted to material interests and the greed for gain.
Our desperate need is for a better quality of leadership: leaders with sufficient wisdom, sensitivity, and compassion to direct our new freedom and surge of creativity to more socially constructive and spiritually fulfilling ends. Dear perceptive and responsive God, help us produce such leaders.
Surround us with the persuasive power of your spirit, so that such persons may rise up among us: persons superior in leadership ability and spiritual sensitivity. And prepare us, as a people, to follow them in the direction of your vision for us.
Let there be a fresh awakening to the significance of your incarnation in Jesus.
In his name, Amen.
In the chaos of change that surrounds us, it is comforting to believe that you are present and concerned; that you have a purpose and an ultimate end toward which you are working as you interact with us. Please do not let our careless exercise of newfound freedom or our juvenile obstreperousness distract you or divert you from that purpose.
We like to think we are not going against your will: that our efforts in physical science, technology, the science of human relationships, and in our avid quest for additional knowledge, are expressions of creative impulses flowing from you. As you will have noted, however, we are not doing too well with these privileges -- these gifts of your grace.
Our efforts are unbalanced and erratic. They are producing much evil along with the good. Physical and material concerns tend to take precedence over the spiritual. Society's welfare and the welfare of persons is being subverted to material interests and the greed for gain.
Our desperate need is for a better quality of leadership: leaders with sufficient wisdom, sensitivity, and compassion to direct our new freedom and surge of creativity to more socially constructive and spiritually fulfilling ends. Dear perceptive and responsive God, help us produce such leaders.
Surround us with the persuasive power of your spirit, so that such persons may rise up among us: persons superior in leadership ability and spiritual sensitivity. And prepare us, as a people, to follow them in the direction of your vision for us.
Let there be a fresh awakening to the significance of your incarnation in Jesus.
In his name, Amen.
