A PRAYER FOR OUR NATION

Dear Heavenly Father, nothing in this world ultimately works unless it honors you, is blessed by you. We pray for our nation daily, that we might be a people whose hearts are turned towards you in repentance and faith, whose lives are turned towards others in service in your Name. To know love is to know the God who is love. To have life is to know the God who gives life to all. To know lasting peace is to know the prince of peace who came to this world to save. With awe and wonder we lift up our hearts and minds in prayer to you this day, praying for our country, our leaders, our workers, our business owners, our families, our people. Lord, we offer these prayers knowing that you are already at work in the world, two distinct ways, to bless and to redeem. Through created “offices” and vocations you keep peace, justice, and civility alive amidst broken, sinful people. Through your Church, you offer a Grace, Mercy and Peace that is pure gift to those same people meant not just for today but forever.

For order, peace and justice in these times, you created the “offices,” the vocations of father, mother, and family. You created the positions of leadership and service that flow from the authority of the family into our daily lives that we (believers and non) might live in peace with one another. Presidents, Governors, Mayors, police, teachers, and all public servants… Business people, entrepreneurs, inventors, sales people, marketers… Writers, artists of all kinds… These and many other vocations exist in our world because of your creativity and love. When you call us to “give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, you call us to pray for people in all of these vocations and more. We pray this day for all those in high positions that they would be people of character, honor, and wisdom. We also pray that they above all, do the duties of their office so that we might have a peaceful and just society, one that affords life and liberty to all who pursue it diligently and faithfully.

Our nation though has wandered from the things of life and liberty. Ours is a nation that is seeking to chart a new path of libertinism in all of its relationships, and license when it comes to the foundational principles that you have written not just on Moses’ tablets of stone, but on the hearts of every person who calls themselves human and humane. Where there is a war against Life, we pray for Life’s victory in all its fullness. For those yet unborn, for those at the end of their earthly life, for those who are forgotten ones in this world, we pray that the fullness of Life be their cherished inheritance in this country of inalienable rights from our Creator. Where there is a war against religious liberty in our midst, we pray for Liberty to shine even more boldly so that all might hear the wonders of you “who has called us out of darkness into your marvelous light (1 Peter 2:9).”

To that end, we pray most earnestly of all. In a nation that grants its citizens liberty and freedom, in a nation that seeks to limit the powerful and set free the religious, disciplined, self-governing citizen free… We, as believers, pray that we might rise to that challenge as your people, to proclaim your ultimate work of redemption for all. We pray for strength and courage to be neighbors to others the way that you are friend to us. We pray for opportunities and wisdom to love others as we ourselves have been loved by you. Dear Father, you sent your Son, who left His power position in heaven to be born in a lowly stable, to live life in our place, to die a death that is the recompense for this world’s sin, and to give us eternal life as a gift now and forever. May that motivate our prayers and our service to our friends and our enemies, to our brothers and sisters in the faith and our neighbors in the community, and all who are in authority to lead and to serve. Give us strength to be a people constantly in prayer, available for service, and bold in our witness of the God who is at work in the world to save. In the Name of Jesus, we pray. Amen!