Our gracious, eternal God, we pause with gratitude on this late August Sunday.  We thank you for the land in which we live and which is now yielding bountiful harvests.  We thank you for the abundance of foods and the many choices available to us.  We have been abundantly blessed in this nation of ours and we thank you.

As we reflect on life we know that most of us will be little remembered in future generations.  We will not be mentioned in an enduring book as were Rahab, Gideon, Barak, Samson, David, and that host of others who were given as examples of people of outstanding faith.  Yet we pray that you would nonetheless make us people of outstanding faith.

Give us the vision to work for a world where all people share the abundance we have known and where none of your children is without.

Give us the vision to fashion a world where discrimination is no longer rampant.
Give us the vision of a world where there is acceptance and love and affirmation expressed to the least of your children.
Give us the vision to create a world where there is respect granted by people of all faiths for all others.
Give us the vision to work for a world of justice and peace.

O God, surrounded as we are by that great cloud of witnesses which has gone before us, grant us courage to forge forward in faith and hope in our time.  Help us to set aside all pride, all concern to be remembered or recognized, and help us to be faithful to the heavenly calling.  Help us to run the race set before us.  Amen