[Congressional Record Volume 170, Number 111 (Friday, July 5, 2024)]
[House]
[Page H4455]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                                 PRAYER

  The Chaplain, the Reverend Margaret Grun Kibben, offered the 
following prayer:
  Sovereign Lord, as we celebrate 248 years of freedom, we pause in 
this moment, and pledge every day to place our Nation in Your just and 
merciful care. As You have blessed our country from its establishment, 
bless us even now and well into our future. In accordance with Your 
will, may we steward faithfully this gift of liberty and justice for 
all.
  For in calling us to freedom, You did not intend for us to take 
advantage of Your beneficence. We were not meant to make independence 
our excuse for self-indulgence, nor our autonomy the rationale to get 
what we want.
  You have given us our liberty to do what is right. You have allowed 
us the self-determination to consider how we may best serve the people 
of this country. You have granted us free volition to use our gifts and 
graces for the preservation of the ideals on which this Nation was 
founded.
  Holy God, on this first day of the Nation's 249th year, we pray for 
Your guidance and continued blessings on these United States as we seek 
to serve You as You intended from our beginnings.
  By the strength found only in Your name do we pray.
  Amen.

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