[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 150 (2004), Part 7]
[Senate]
[Page 8625]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

                                 prayer

  The guest Chaplain offered the following prayer:
  May we speak to Him for a moment.
  Gentle and patient Father, on this National Day of Prayer, we thank 
You for the love and understanding and forgiveness You have for our 
imperfections and blunderings as Your people. We are grateful for this 
wondrous country whose roots are still deep enough in spiritual reality 
to acknowledge that vital prayer is critically necessary not only for 
our well-being, but for our survival.
  My Dear Lord, grant afresh to the Members of this historic Chamber 
the increased power in mind, heart and will to overcome unnecessary 
conflicts, shallow contentions and abiding differences to such a degree 
that their honest tensions will bring the good and the best to our 
American people, both living in our homeland or serving throughout the 
world. Give our President, our leaders, our citizens and especially 
these Senators a depth of selflessness, a love of others and an 
expansion of vision that will enhance and fulfill dreams and goals of 
our gifted Founding Fathers. Let them seek and find Your path as 
earnestly today as our ancestors did in 1776 and 1787.
  Finally, my Lord, teach us that prayer that is powerful is more than 
asking You for gifts, answers or promises fulfilled but, rather, the 
yielding of ourselves to truth. May our actions demonstrate that our 
passion for our country is not sourced in the conservative view of 
truth or the liberal view of truth but in the right view of truth. Give 
our Senators righteous, humble and honest minds that the awesome task 
that is theirs will be effectively achieved for ourselves and our 
posterity. Guide them with foresight that when their labor here be 
ended Scripture could testify of them as it does of King David, ``he 
led them with a pure heart, and guided them with skillful hands!'' 
Amen.

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