[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 106 (Thursday, July 18, 1996)]
[Senate]
[Page S8065]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

                                 prayer

  The Chaplain, Dr. Lloyd John Ogilvie, offered the following prayer:
  Gracious God, knowledge of You is our purpose and our passion. It is 
also our greatest need and our most urgent desire. We really want to 
know You, not just as some distant creator and sustainer of the 
universe but as our Father and our Friend. We confess that often our 
lack of knowledge of You is the cause of our insecurity, our 
inconsistency, and our insufficiency. It also accounts for our 
vacillation in our prayers. We commit this day to seek to know You 
better. We open our true selves to You; we want to be real, honest, and 
vulnerable with You; we invite You to invade every aspect of our 
relationships and our responsibilities today. Show us Your will and 
give us the strength and courage to follow Your guidance. We dedicate 
ourselves to make knowledge of You our first priority. Show us Your 
grace and goodness, righteousness and power. We place our total trust 
in You, and we will live by faith in You today. Be the unseen but 
undeniable presence in every moment of this day.
  Gracious Lord, as we seek to know You and understand You, we wonder 
why good people face difficult and painful things. We wonder about the 
crash of the TWA aircraft. We think of the young people and the 
sponsors who were with them from Montoursville, PA. We realize that 
Your most difficult decision was to allow this world to be free in 
which accidents can happen, wrong choices can be made. And we turn to 
You for Your strength and courage in the midst of questions that seem 
to be without answers. But we also know that in spite of everything, 
You are in control, and so we trust You as our Lord and Savior. Amen.

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