[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 154 (2008), Part 5]
[House]
[Page 7163]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

                                 PRAYER

  Dr. William Lloyd Birch, retired Baptist minister, Florence, South 
Carolina, offered the following prayer:
  We are so grateful for the blessings You have given to us. But the 
blessings of the past will not suffice for the needs of today. We know 
that if we commit ourselves to You, You will help us to focus on the 
needs of our Nation.
  We confess that so often we fall short of the expectations You have 
for us. We are tempted and so often we succumb to these temptations. We 
put ourselves before others. We fail to show our brothers and sisters 
the love that You want us to demonstrate by the quality of our lives.
  As we face this day, help us to be honest, unselfish, compassionate 
people. What have we gained if we obtain success in the eyes of the 
world and yet lose the sense of Your presence and Your will among us?
  May Your kingdom come. May Your will be done. We pray in the name of 
our Lord, the God of our Nation.
  Amen.

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