Prayer of St. Francis

Yesterday I came across this essay titled “Stop Asking God to Make a Better World.” It’s from James Denison, the “theologian-in-residence” for the Baptist General Convention of Texas, which is a moderate (i.e. – not fundamentalist) Baptist association. The essay is rather weak, but it has a good point – a point that was expressed in a much better way in a prayer attributed to St. Francis of Assisi:

Lord, make me an instrument of Thy peace;
where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
and where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master,
grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;
to be understood, as to understand;
to be loved, as to love;
for it is in giving that we receive,
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

Amen.