Today I’m deferring my own written prayer for someone else’s (see goal number three). A pastor named Ben Zahn wrote this prayer, and I found it shared on Facebook. I’m kidnapping it for my own site because this morning, like a lot of people in our nation, I’m without words after yesterday’s tragedy in Boston and all the disturbing events of the last couple weeks. Let’s join together in praying for our country:

Gracious Lord, there’s been a lot of bad that has caused a lot of sadness across our country in the last week. From the college stabbings in Texas, to the college shooting in Virginia, to the individual lit on fire in CA or the reported murder-suicide in NYC by an NYPD agent… or now the reported explosions in Boston at the finish line of the marathon. Lord Jesus, we look and we ask all sorts of questions with dumb-founded-ness and disbelief. But worse, there’s the doubt that resides in the dark recesses of our hearts that arrogantly asks, “why God did you let this happen.” You don’t tell us why. Nor do you tell us what will happen after we say Amen to this prayer.
Why? Because you know that if we knew the future, we couldn’t handle it. The more we’d know of the future, the more we’d worry about it. The more we’d worry about it, the more we’d stray from you because we’d try to manage it ourselves. Lord Jesus, with humility we confess the future is not ours to know, but yours. It’s a part of your knowledge and majesty and so we ask you to focus us on your promise to us in Jesus… “For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.” (2 Corinthians 4:17-18)
Dearest Jesus who died to demolish the voice of sin… to silence the speech of Satan … who rose to remove the haunting howl of the grave… speak to us through your Word. Calm, comfort, and console us by the power of your powerful Word and lift our eyes to that grand and glorious day when we see you face to face in joy, everlasting, Amen.