[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 122 (Tuesday, September 15, 1998)]
[House]
[Page H7697]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                                 PRAYER

  The Reverend Dr. Kenneth L. Samuel, Victory Baptist Church, Stone 
Mountain, Georgia, offered the following prayer:
  Let us pray. Gracious God, our help in ages past, our hope for the 
new millennium, and our strength to stand this day, we are deeply 
grateful for the amazing grace and the wondrous mercies which have 
established us and sustained us as a people. Lord God, we have seen you 
move in and throughout our history to cultivate us and to correct us 
and to challenge us to make real the vision of our national mantra: One 
Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
  We know that the challenge to secure the rights of everyone, without 
denying the rights of anyone, is easier said than done. We know that 
the distinction between mercy for our weaknesses and judgment for our 
wickedness is often difficult to discern. But we also know that for 
every noble vision, You provide sufficient provision. And so we look to 
You for divine direction to accomplish Your divine directive.
  Father, when You have shown us the way, please give us the courage 
and the faith to walk therein. We thank You today not just for the 
blessings You have bestowed upon us, we thank You today for the 
opportunity to make our blessings count. We thank You today for the 
opportunity to demonstrate our greatness through our service to 
humankind, and in that light we ask that You would help us to become 
greater than we have ever been before.
  We offer this prayer in the name of the Christ who came that we might 
have life, and life more abundantly. Amen.

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