[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 158 (2012), Part 4]
[House]
[Page 4686]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

                                 PRAYER

  Reverend Dr. Barry Black, Chaplain, United States Senate, offered the 
following prayer:
  Eternal Lord God, who alone spreads out the heavens and rules the 
raging of the sea, continue to challenge us when we are too well 
pleased with ourselves, when our dreams come true because we have 
dreamed too little, when we arrive safely simply because we have sailed 
too close to the shore.
  Challenge us, O God, when, with the abundance of the things we 
possess, we lose our thirst for the waters of life.
  Challenge us when we forget that righteousness exalts a nation, but 
that sin is an equal opportunity destroyer.
  Challenge us when we fail to join You in Your quest to bring 
deliverance to captives, the recovery of sight to the blind, and to set 
at liberty those who are bruised.
  O God, this day, challenge us to dare more boldly, to venture on 
wider seas where storms will show Your mastery, where losing sight of 
land we will find Your stars.
  We pray in Your sovereign name. Amen.

                          ____________________