With All My Heart, I Will Pray

If you listen to the daily news, you can quickly become saturated with stories of violence, violence of all kinds. It disturbs the soul, and yet we listen, with a deep longing that there will be a way to stop it.

The ravages of war . . . Gun violence . . . Children harming other children . . . Adults beating children . . . A man using physical violence against his spouse . . . The sex trafficking of children . . . The stories are too much to hear.

Psalm 122 offers a heartening word against violence:

I rejoiced when I heard them announce,
“The time of warfare is past.
No more will brother hate brother
or violence have its way.
No more will they drown out God’s silence
and shut their hearts to his song.”

Pray for peace in the cities
and harmony among the races.
May peace come to live on our streets
and justice within our walls.
With all my heart I will pray
that peace comes to live among us.
For the sake of all earth’s people,
I will do my utmost for peace.

(Source: The Psalms (translated by Stephen Mitchell)

Let us pray for peace with all our hearts.