The Rest of the Story

I just received a version of this today (thanks, Ken).

PAUL HARVEY’S ON- AIR PRAYER

‘Heavenly Father, we come before you today to ask your forgiveness and to seek your direction and guidance.

We know Your Word says, ‘Woe to those who call evil good,’ but that is exactly what we have done. We have lost our spiritual equilibrium and reversed our values.

We have exploited the poor and called it the lottery.

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 self esteem.

We have abused power and called it politics.

We have coveted our neighbor’s 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 forefathers and called it enlightenment.

Search us, Oh God, and know our hearts today; cleanse us from every sin and Set us free. Amen!’

There's usually a story behind the story when an email circulates. This one is really interesting. The origins of the prayer is attributed on Snopes as being the Rev. Joe Wright, praying before the Kansas House of Representatives in 1996, and the Rev. Wright modeled his prayer on one given by Bob Russell at the Kentucky Governor's Prayer Breakfast in 1995.

It really got interesting when I went ot Bob Russell's site to try to read the original. One must pay to read the original!

As the blogger on whose site I last visited says, "Doesn’t matter at this point who said it, it's true and inspirational."