Honoring Courage…

Quotes from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. ~

“Faith is taking the first step even when you don’t see the whole staircase.”

“I have decided to stick with love.  Hate is too great a burden to bear.”

“The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically.  Intelligence plus character ~ that is the goal of true education.”

“Only in the darkness can you see the stars.”

“Everybody can be great… because anybody can serve.  You don’t have to have a college degree to serve.  You don’t have to make your subject and verb agree to serve.  You only need a heart full of grace. A soul generated by love.”

But the greatest among you shall be your servant. Matthew 23:11

Prayers from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. ~

“God grant that we wage the struggle with dignity and discipline.  May all who suffer oppression in this world reject the self-defeating method of retaliatory violence and choose the method that seeks to redeem. ”

“Let us pray. O God, our Heavenly Father, out of whose mind this great cosmic universe has been created, toward whom the weary and perplexed of all generations turn for consolation and direction, we come before Thy presence this evening thanking Thee for the many blessings of life.  We come recognizing our dependence on Thee.  We also come, O God, with an awareness.  The fact that we have not always given our lives to that which is high and noble.  In the midst of all of the high and noble aspects of justice, we followed injustice.  We stand amid the forces of truth and yet we deliberately lie.  We stand amid the compelling urgency of the Lord of Love, as exemplified in the life of Jesus Christ, and yet we live our lives so often in the dungeons of hate.  For all of these sins, O God, forgive.  And in these days of emotional tension, when the problems of the world are gigantic in extent and chaotic in detail, give us penetrating vision, broad understanding, power of endurance and abiding faith, and save us from the paralysis of crippling fear…
All of these things we ask, in the name of Him who taught us to pray, ‘Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name. . .’”

“God grant that under the spirit of Jesus Christ you will choose a high way.  Eternal God our Father, we thank Thee for the inspiration of Jesus.  Grant that we will follow His way and recognize that we are made for the high places.  And grant that we will rise up out of the low, far countries of evil and return to the Father’s house.  And now unto Him whom is able to keep us from falling and to present us faultless before our Father’s throne, to Him be power and authority, majesty and dominion, now, henceforth, and forevermore. Amen.”

MLK quotes:
www.goodreads.com
Brainy Quote
MLK prayers:
Excerpted from the book Thou, Dear God: Prayers that Open Heart and Spirits
via BeliefNet ~  http://www.beliefnet.com/Faiths/Christianity/Galleries/Thou-Dear-God

Photo credit:
http://www.historicalstockphotos.com/details/photo/1614_mlkwhite_photo_of_mlk_martin_luther_king_jr.html

{Editor’s note: this article was originally posted in 2015}

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *