The truth is hard to swallow

Below is a prayer Pastor Joe Wright gave when asked to open the new session of the Kansas House of Representatives on January 23, 1996. I find it a very insightful prayer, a kind of prayer that will bother those who do not want to admit to being a sinner. It will bother those who believe this countries moral compass is already pointing true north something I think even the most lukewarm Humanist would agree is not the case. It will bother those who deny Christianity, the validity of the Bible and Gods grace to justify their wrong doing.

The Secularist main stream and the Liberal media have cloaked a veil over our eyes to make people think anything is permissible as long as you feel it is okay. Day by day our children are being poisoned by moral neglect and an indifference to common decency. Some want to deny their accountability to God over their morality, belief and acceptance of our Lord and savior Jesus Christ. I think this line of thinking is akin to a teenager denying their parents authority over them, the old “You are not the boss of me!” argument. My children at one point truly believed that if they covered their eyes I could not see them because they could not see me. No matter how much they believed that I could not see them, it never changed the reality. So too is it with God. The truth is hard to swallow



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THE PRAYER

The response was immediate - with a number of legislators walking out during the prayer. In six short weeks Central Christian Church logged more than 5,000 phone calls, with only 47 of those calls responding negatively.

Commentator Paul Harvey aired Pastor Joe Wright's prayer on the radio and received a larger response to this program than any other program Paul Harvey has ever aired.
In addition, Central Christian Church is now receiving international requests for copies of this prayer from India, Africa, and Korea.

The prayer is reprinted below:

Heavenly Father, we come before you today to ask your forgiveness and seek your direction and guidance.
We know your Word says, "Woe to those who call evil good," but that's exactly what we've done. We have lost our spiritual equilibrium and inverted our values.
We confess that we have ridiculed the absolute truth of your Word and called it moral pluralism. We have worshiped other gods and called it multiculturalism.
We have endorsed perversion and called it an alternative lifestyle.
We have exploited the poor and called it the lottery.
We have neglected the needy and called it self-preservation.
We have rewarded laziness and called it welfare.
We have killed our unborn and called it choice.
We have shot abortionists and called it justifiable.
We have neglected to discipline our children and called it building esteem.
We have abused power and called it political savvy.
We have coveted our neighbors' possessions and called it ambition.
We have polluted the air with profanity and pornography and called it freedom of expression. We have ridiculed the time-honored values of our fore-fathers and called it enlightenment.

Search us O God and know our hearts today; try us and see if there is some wicked way in us; cleanse us from every sin and set us free.
Guide and bless these men and women who have been sent here by the people of Kansas, and who have been ordained by you, to govern this great state.
Grant them your wisdom to rule and may their decisions direct us to the center of your will.
I ask it in the name of your son, the living savior, Jesus Christ.Amen.

***text taken from http://www.truthorfiction.com/rumors/k/kansasprayer.htm
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Wright later explained, "I thought I might get a call from an angry congressman or two, but I was talking to God, not them. The whole point was to say that we all have sins that we need to repent – all of us . . . The problem, I guess, is that you're not supposed to get too specific when you're talking about sin."