Opening Invocation: Colorado House March 5, 2025
I had the honor of sharing the opening prayer for the house session on March 5 and I just wanted to share that prayer with you:
Great God of Hope, despite popular belief, you are present in this place. You are not measuring our righteousness by our beliefs or the eloquence and force of our arguments. You do not love us based on our vote. You are not on the side of one party while in oppositon to the other. Your concern is not about political wins and losses.
God of Justice, you measure us by how we treat those who have the least. Your ears are attuned to those crying out in fear and sorrow. Your heart breaks at the suffering of your children. Your concern is for the plight of the foreigner in our midst who has no safe way back home, the trans teenager abandoned by their family and their community, the overlooked laborer who has been robbed of their wages, and your creation that is being abused, polluted, carved into, and exploited. You have given us a great responsibility.
And so, great God of Peace, we come before you this morning preparing for another day of work. Bless this work, O God, that it be a blessing to the poor. Bless the proceedings of this legislative body that the policies passed promote justice, equity, and peace. Bless the souls here who are wrestling with decisions yet to be made, and grant to them wisdom and discernment. Bless the workings of this body, and may their work bear fruit that brings life where there is lifelessness, housing where there is houselessness, food where there is starvation, resources where there is privation, peace where there is violence, and hope where there is only despair.
O God of Love, your presence is in this place. Your face is turned toward us like a parent who lovingly watches their child. And so, despite what might happen today, good or bad, we trust in your love for us that will remain steadfast. And so we give you thanks. We lift our prayers to you. May they be a pleasing and fragrant offering of hope in your sight, our rock and our redeemer. And all God’s people said: Amen.
