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A reflection and prayer to start the day with the Revd Dr Craig Gardiner, a tutor at Cardiff Baptist College.

Good morning. I remember this day back in 1993: approaching Christmas with songs of ‘peace on earth and goodwill to all’, I watched the British Prime-minister John Major and the Irish Taoiseach, Albert Reynolds sign the Downing Street Declaration. I’d grown up in the violence of what were euphemistically called ‘The Troubles’ of Ireland, and this felt like a genuine move towards peace.

The initial political reception was far from euphoric. And it took months for the paramilitary factions to bring an end to the violence. And even then, it did not last. The ceasefire broke as old hurts, along with old habits die hard.

But as Martin Luther King reminds us, ‘the arc of the universe may be long, but it does bend towards justice’ and just a few years later the Good Friday Agreement of 1998 moved people further on a journey towards reconciliation. Of course, the old hurts still linger, but at least new habits were being found.

The long walk towards any sort of peace is full of false starts and dead-ends and stumbling blocks. Whether it is peace between nations, between religions or within our family tensions, the trouble can often seem too big to bear and our hopes can grow too small. But perseverance, is a virtue much valued in the Christian tradition. When Jesus teaches the disciples to pray, he encourages them to ask God, and to keep on asking, seek God and keep on seeking and you shall find, knock and keep on knocking and the door shall be opened to you.

God, we pray this day
that doors of peace and good will to all
would be flung open wide:
between nations, and faiths and in families too:
but if this does not all come to pass
then we will ask
and seek
and knock again tomorrow.
Amen