In anticipation of Presidents Day, I have chosen a prayer from the book, The Prayers That Shaped America. It’s a prayer from the inaugural address of George H.W. Bush, January 20, 1989.
He says: “My first act as president is a prayer. I ask you to bow your heads.” And so pray:
Heavenly Father, we bow our heads and thank You for Your love. Accept our thanks for the peace that yields this day and the shared faith that makes its continuance likely. Make us strong to do Your work, willing to hear and heed Your will. And write on our hearts these words, “Use power to help people”…. There is just one use of power, and it is to serve people. Help us to remember it, Lord.
The Lord our God be with us as He was with our [ancestors]. May God not leave us or forsake us, so that He may incline our hearts to Him, to walk in all His ways…. that all peoples of the Earth may know that the Lord is God, there is no other.—AMEN.
(Dr. Chuck Harding and Pastor T. Michael Creed)