Prayer for June 2, 2021

Prayer for June 2, 2021: Please pray with me. God of creativity, we need you. Even after we have been in a pandemic, you would think we would see the world anew with new possibilities. But we struggle with this — for some things. We settle for the reality of gun violence. Why? It’s not what it means to have your kingdom unfold. It’s not part of the meaning of Shalom. It’s not the way of peace. It has nothing to do with salvation. Guns don’t save us. Yet we treat them as sacred. We idolize them. Because of our unwillingness to stop gun violence, we, as a society, have offered gallons of blood sacrifices to this idol. And to what end? We are trapped and cannot escape. We have trouble envisioning a world without such violence as if it is violence is normal. It is not. Give us the creativity to see that our world doesn’t have to be this way. Give us the stubbornness to not settle for the status quo. Too many have died already for a false god that is never satisfied. Only your way can bring peace. Peace doesn’t come through the barrel of a gun. Salvation doesn’t come through a gun either. Only death and destruction does. Amen.

Originally published at https://pastormatthewbest.com on June 2, 2021.