My Ash Wednesday Prayer

My Ash Wednesday Prayer

Eternal God,

We have been horrified by a Russian army that uses banned weapons. By order of their war criminal President, they kill civilians. The Russian army has invaded a free sovereign nation. Vladimir Putin, as the agent of evil, spews the same language of grievance that Hitler used to deceive his nation into a grandiose lie.

God, pour out your judgement on him and those who bow to him, but also on us who watched him do it before and said little. Bring the world together to do Your will. Grant us discernment to choose actions in a sea of difficult and hazy choices. Save us from blaming, indifference, excuses and disunity. Fill us with a spirit of relentless self-sacrifice and determination to jam a spoke in the wheel of evil.

Forgive us for turning our eyes away from sin and misery. Help us to stare at this moment and see. Prepare us for the long fight for the helpless, the refugee, the vulnerable and the truth.

In this season of Lent, call us who call ourselves Christians to give cheerfully and sacrificially when it hurts to do it, to feed and clothe and heal and help. May we fast from indifference. May we repent of pride, resentment, division, and unrighteousness.

Help us to take up practices and disciplines of deep resolve and fierce action that express a living and genuine faith. If they have lain useless by our distractions and misbegotten selfishness, wake us. In the weariness of a world with too many temptations and escapes, help us to focus. Help us to walk with each other, hand in hand, for the sake of all the is worth saving and for the sake of Your Kingdom. But let us never mistake soft sentimentality or smooth words for faithfulness.

This our painful Lenten prayer. Through Christ our Lord, Amen. ashwednesday2022