Prayer of Petition for Human Relations Day

O God our help in ages past, you brought us this far by faith.

The journey has been marked with many disappointments, great oppression and dehumanization. By your right hand, you have brought us through.

The Pharaohs may still be pursuing us, but you have already parted the waters and chartered the course. The strategists of past times never thought we could get there; but from Mount Pisgah, we behold the land.

Help us not to look back with fear or pity. Keep our eyes resolutely on the Promised Land. It is our inheritance freely offered by you. How arable, how beautiful, how rich with mineral is that land!

Give us courage to continue the journey. It was not, it is not, and it will never be easy; but with you, O God, it is possible.

Increase our faith, strengthen our feeble knees and give us enthusiasm and zeal so that others may be encouraged on the journey.

We owe it all to you and we shall shout from the mountaintops and tell in the valleys that Jesus Christ is the Sovereign Lord. In him, nothing is impossible. Hear us we pray in Jesus' name. Amen.

The Rev. T. Anne Daniel is a clergy member of the Conference of the Methodist Church in the Caribbean and the Americas (MCCA). Currently, T. Anne pastors Wakefield Grace UMC in the New York Annual Conference.