Morning prayer · 9 July

Friends of all the world

Many different hands of all shapes and skin tones meet in the middle of the page to shake or clasp together in a simple circle, like family greeting one another at the day's start.

Father, a new day lies ahead of us. As we go out among people to do our work, touching their hands and their lives, please make us friends of all the world. Keep us from crushing the fresh flower of anyone’s heart with a flash of anger or secret hate, or bruising anyone’s rightful self-respect with contempt. Help us cheer the suffering with our sympathy, lift the drooping with our hope, and strengthen in everyone a healthy sense of their worth and the joy of life. Save us from the deadly poison of snobbery. Let us look everyone in the face as family. If anyone needs us, make us ready to help gladly, unless a higher duty calls, and glad we have it in us to help. Amen.

Rejoice with those who rejoice; weep with those who weep.

Romans 12:15 (BSB)

Adapted from Walter Rauschenbusch, Prayers of the Social Awakening (1910), in plain words. The verse is from the Berean Standard Bible (public domain). Drawing: Mutter.