God of all bravery, of all triumphs and victories, of every success and accomplishment,

God of guts and grit, of heroism and fearlessness,

Give us the courage to trust in You, the unseen and yet visible, hidden in plain sight within us.  Give us the audacity to believe that we need not search any longer, that You really are present in us, that we need only seek You in order to find ourselves.

Give us the courage to trust more in the unseen than the seen of us, to look within and stand firm, to live within and not back down, to dare to trust in spirit more than flesh, in vision more than eyesight, in Your eternal Word more than the armies of past actions.

Give us the courage to talk back to stereotypes and to deny prejudice a vessel, to say that I am not who has been but who will be.  Give us the determination to be new and to stay new, to not fall back into old patterns and traditions, behaviors and mindsets, hatreds and divisions.

“Create in me a clean heart, O God and put a new and right spirit within me” (Psalm 51.10).  Amen.