[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 148 (2002), Part 1]
[Senate]
[Page 434]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

                                 prayer

  The guest Chaplain, Brigadier General David Hicks, offered the 
following prayer:
  Lord of Hosts, our Nation continues to heal from so recently being 
attacked. In such a time as this, give us the moral courage to examine 
both our strengths and our shortcomings. As we recover, make us justly 
proud of our democratic processes, our history of liberty, and our 
striving to forge a nation built upon equality. However, make us also 
bold to confess that we have often been heedless of Your power in 
giving us these national blessings. Rather than seeking first Your 
kingdom, we have often tried to add ``all these things'' unto ourselves 
through our own strength. Remember not our tendencies to place 
ourselves before You, O Lord. Rather, as with David, let our prayer for 
America be that ``I have set the Lord always before me and because he 
is at my right hand, I shall not fall.''--Psalm 16:8.
  We ask that as Your servants, called upon to lead this Nation, You 
would always give these Senators ``eyes to see and ears to hear'' the 
way in which You have us to walk as a people. Aid us, O Lord, that we 
would prosecute this current war with an eye toward establishing a 
future peace and that through our example other countries would be 
emboldened to value freedom, to cherish their own people, and to enact 
Your kingdom through our common lives together. In the power of Your 
name do I pray. Amen.

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