First person: You can change the world today

By Karen Moore
Author, “Prayers from the Heart”

A former Canadian politician, Jack Layton, said, “My friends, love is better than anger. Hope is better than fear. Optimism is better than despair. So let us be loving, hopeful and optimistic. And we’ll change the world.”

I’m reflecting on this attitude toward change as I consider the inherent negativity that exists in our everyday lives and our political arena. We’ve become too well acquainted with anger, with hopelessness and despair. We’ve imagined the worst instead of cultivating the best. We’ve allowed our hearts and minds to wander away from the ways God wants us to think and the ways He wants us to care for one another.

We are individually and collectively the ones who can make a difference.

We are the ones who can remind others who God is, and that God still reigns, and He is in control.

We can choose to think as the world suggests, wandering in the dark, fearing one another, or we can trust that God has not left us desolate.

We simply have to pay attention to the Spirit who leads us forward.

Please pray with me.

Lord, it feels like so many people are deceived by a spirit of depression and negative attitudes.

So many people suffer miseries that never befall them, worrying about what might be and missing what is.

I ask today that You would free us from fear and anger and deceitful spirits and renew us with the power of Your Holy Spirit.

Help us to remember all You’ve done in the past to strengthen us and guide us.

Give us positive thoughts as we embrace the good in others and help us flood the world with light to overcome the seeming darkness.

Let each person who seeks Your guidance, Your mercy and Your grace today be encouraged by all that is still possible.

Help us to do our possibles, while you do the impossibles. We are in Your hands from here to heaven, and we are in this world together.

Thank You for renewing our thoughts, our spirits and our abilities to do all we can to bring the power of hope to others.

Help us to honor one another and forgive our uncaring thoughts, so that we lovingly choose kindness in all we do.

We praise and thank You.

Amen.

(Partial excerpt from my book, “Prayers from the Heart”)