On 9.11.2011, Overlake Christian Church was honored to host special services focused upon the events of 9.11 and our response one decade later. If you missed it, I highly recommend viewing it at occ.org. As a part of these proceedings, two local firefighters, and members of Overlake, Rob Robertson and Phil Pierson, led the congregation in prayer. After each service we've received dozens of requests for the content of Rob's prayer. Here it is...offered in humility, knowing the heartfelt and heartache that it was written in:
"Greetings.
These class A uniforms that my brother Phil Pierson and I are wearing today are a symbol of the shared losses of fellow firefighters, police, military personnel and citizens’ of our country and especially to honor all who lost their life -- on this day - 10 years ago. Please bow, and join us now in prayer.
Father God, Lord Jesus,
on this anniversary of the horrific attacks on innocent men, women and children….
We are profoundly sorrowful…. remembering what we witnessed just one decade ago
We offer you our broken hearts…. and we grieve with all who were touched most brutally.
The orphans and widows, family and friends, that today, ache with fresh grief and loss…. yet to grow less painful.
Please draw each of these who mourn close to Your heart, so that they may intimately know Your unconditional love, comfort and hope. We are sobered by the staggering loss of life and the reality of the ill intentions that caused such travesty.
May we never succumb to reacting out of bitterness or giving way to hatred.
Fill us instead with the love that can only come from you, as you have commanded us to love our enemies.
We beg for your intervention in all that seems, to us, impossible to resolve.
And that your desires would become our desires, that we would trade our will for your will.
You are gracious and forgiving to all who seek You…. fill us with your love.
Open our eyes to any blind spots we may have in the complexities of all that enters into these global sufferings and adversities.
Please help us to have yielded hearts, that you might use us, as you choose, for your ultimate glory in all things.
In Jesus’ powerful name,
Amen"
1 comment:
great prayer!
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