Presented as our invocation at Friday's meeting:
 
As Donald Trump takes office as the 45th president of the United States, we should pray that his presidency is a great and good one. That prayer applies to all, whether someone voted for the current president or not.

Those who like the new president should pray that he governs so successfully that their hopes are realized. Those who don’t like the new president should pray that, at the end of his term if not before, they are surprised that they were wrong.

This means we should pray for many things, specifically. We should pray for physical safety. Leading a nation is a perilous thing, as we have seen throughout our country’s history. We should pray also for wisdom and discernment.

A president — or any elected official — will have many expert advisers giving counsel, and many of these experts will see things differently. We should pray that Trump would at every turn have the foresight to differentiate between all the competing options in a way that benefits the country and the rest of the world.

We should also pray that the president is able to bring about peace. This means we pray that he would lead the world toward peaceful resolutions of conduct.

We also should pray that God uses him, through the bully pulpit of the presidency, to model what it means for an often-divided nation to live in peace and civility with one another, even when we disagree. A president cannot do that alone, but we should pray that, as in other times in our history, the president is able to make a start.