Each year, the 29th day of September holds special significance for police throughout Australia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Samoa and the Solomon Islands.

It is a day for police to pause and honour those whose lives have been lost while performing their duty as police officers.

This important day is also a time to remember other police officers who have lost their lives through illness or other circumstances.

And so, this week, let us pray this prayer, together:

Our heavenly Father, we thank you for your providential care of our world and the peace and security that we enjoy in our land. We especially thank you for the Police Force of New South Wales. Despite the corruption of the human heart and the prevalence of lawlessness and sin, we thank you for these guardians of justice in our society.

We pray for the members of our Police Force as they maintain law and order in our state. Give them the courage to expose unrighteousness, wherever it is found, to pursue justice for the common good, to deal with all without fear or favour, and to act with wisdom and compassion in all their work. Protect them from danger in their duties, shield them from temptation, and enable them to be role models for all whom they serve.

We also pray for police chaplains as they minister to the spiritual and emotional needs of our Police Force members. May they act with compassion, wisdom and love as they support police officers in their line of duty.

We offer our prayer in the name of Jesus Christ, who alone brings order to the human heart, peace to a troubled world and the hope of eternal life for all who put their trust in him. Amen.

ARCHBISHOP GLENN DAVIES

CREDIT: Mitchell Joyce, via Flickr.

It is hard to claim that pyramid-shaped tea-bags have added much to the sum of human happiness.

They’re just another part of our society’s never ending quest for better and more luxurious things. The continual rise of technology has made products, once considered only for the elite, now available to everyone – the pyramid tea bag one such example! I’m not sure anyone expected that particular product to create a wave of new found happiness. But what of more sought after technologies? With the ability for more people to gain access to these goods we might have expected a steady rise in our society’s general happiness.

However as levels of wealth and technology have risen, levels of happiness have gone down. Technology was meant to bring a higher standard of living with less work. However all we have found is that the goal posts have moved. We don’t just want a higher standard of living, we want a higher standard of living than others. In other words we take for granted luxuries that were only dreamed of a generation ago, and we want more. We are now working more and are dissatisfied with what we have.

This should come as no surprise to Christians (although we too find ourselves caught up in this cycle). However what may come as a surprise is that any pursuit of happiness as an end goal, seems to lead to a decrease in happiness. The more we chase happiness, the more elusive it is. We often wish this goal for others with sentiments like ‘whatever makes you happy’, or  ‘I’m happy if you’re happy.’ However this goal in the end is simply counter-productive.

That’s because God has made us for a greater goal than happiness.

We are created to love and serve him, and to love and serve others. And a wonderful truth emerges here – the more we forget about focusing on ourselves and our own happiness, the happier we become.

SIMON CHAPLIN