Evening Prayer

A Prayer for Peace When Peace Feels Impossible

Lord of all, I do not want to pray for peace. I really don’t, and you know that. I want the war to be won. I want the oppressors to fall, the invaders to be turned back, the guilty to face justice. I want to see the powerful brought low, to watch as those who deal in death and destruction to reap what they have sown. I want the good guys to win and the bad guys to lose.

But you, God, are not so easily enlisted in my cause. You do not play sides as I do because You are the God of all creation. You care for faraway lands and for the cul-de-sac a few blocks away. You insist on peace even when all I see is war. You call me to pray not just for the children who suffer but for those who make them suffer. It is too much. It is unfair. It feels like an impossible ask—impossible that I could do it and impossible that I would even want to.

And yet, You are a God who works beyond my understanding. You turn enemies into brothers, walls into bridges, graves into gardens. You make a way where there is none. If you can do this, then maybe—against all reason—you can bring peace where there is only bloodshed. Maybe you can soften even the hardest hearts, including mine.

So I will pray, though I barely believe it is possible.

Kyrie eleison. Christe eleison.

Lord, have mercy. Christ, have mercy.

Estalish Your peace across creation: in Ukraine, the United States, on my street, and in my home. Have mercy on the children of Ukraine, on the children of this divided and angry nation, and on all of us drowning in fear and hate. Have mercy on a world that does not know how to heal itself. Break the cycle we cannot seem to break. Do what only you can do.

Amen.