We invite you to read over and reflect on past prayers, and also to contribute your prayers by sending an e-mail to prayforourcountry@gmail.com. Together we can make a difference. Matthew 18:19-20.
Welcome
January 12, 2012Elections 2022
November 6, 2022“. . . We do not make requests of you because we are righteous, but because of your great mercy. O Lord, listen! O Lord, forgive! O Lord, hear and act.” Daniel 9:18-19
O Lord help us to be better than we are.
Quick to forgive and slow to anger (James 1:19-21), seeking the still and quiet space where we might hear your voice.
Give us the will and wisdom to seek out truth, to turn away from those who cause deceit to prosper (Daniel 8:25),
from those who use your name and dishonor you with their actions (Matthew 15:8).
Restore in us a vision of one country, working together, towards liberty and justice for all.
Raise among us those who will lead with love and compassion and calming words,
so that we may be at peace and together find our way.
Guide us O Lord.
Amen
related past prayers:
July 4th, 2022
July 4, 2022Lord we thank you for our freedom and your many gifts.
O beautiful for spacious skies for amber waves of grain.*
We thank you for opportunities to grow and for a prosperous land. Help us to share so that all might thrive.
For purple mountains majesty, above the fruited plain.
We thank you for the beauty and abundance with which we are surrounded. Let it inspire and encourage us to reach out to others and share your love.
America, America, God shed his grace on thee.
We thank you for your forgiveness and mercy. May we extend that to others, forsaking tribalism, factionalism, and hyper-partisanship. Help us to love our neighbors as ourselves. (Luke 10:25-37; Galatians 3:26-29).
And crowned thy good with brotherhood, from sea to shining sea.
We thank you Lord for the many diverse peoples that make up our country. May we see the richness of your creation in this diversity and resist those who would exploit our differences and sow division.
Help us Lord to use our freedoms wisely, overcoming evil with good and serving one another with love. (Romans 12:21; Galatians 5:13).
Guide us towards peace, O Lord.
Amen
*italicized lines from the hymn America The Beautiful
Other July 4 Posts:
Easter 2022
April 18, 2022He has risen
giving us hope
that we too can love sacrificially,
strengthen our communities,
pursue justice, and
survive oppression,
together.
Hope
that we can change the world for our children – all children.
Hope
that they might thrive, finding
food, water, shelter, and opportunities to use the talents God gave them,
together.
Hope
that we might move towards love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control,
and away from the politics of power and control.
He has risen.
Alleluia!
Amen
Christmas 2021
December 25, 2021The light shines in the darkness.
Help us to see.
To understand.
To share your truth.
To act in love.
To pursue peace.
Our hope is in that light.
The light shines through the darkness.
Amen
Advent 2021 Week 4
December 21, 2021Lord, let your love flow in us and through us.
Heal us.
Help us.
Equip us to share your love.
To reach beyond ourselves.
To find a better way.
Guide us with your love O Lord.
Amen
Advent 2021 Week 3
December 17, 2021We await O Lord, your justice.
The promise that our mourning will end,
Our fighting will cease,
And both the oppressed and oppressor will be freed to a new way,
A way of compassion, of truth, of caring and love.
And we rejoice in the knowledge that the time for justice will come. Is. 25:9.
Amen
Advent 2021 Week 2
December 9, 2021Help us find peace O Lord.
Peace within us.
Peace among us.
Peace through us.
Guide us with your vision.
“The wolf will live with the lamb, the leopard will lie down with the goat,
the calf and the yearling together, and a little child will lead them . . .
They will neither harm nor destroy on all my holy mountain,
for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea.” (Is. 11:6-9).
Amen.
Advent 2021 Week 1
December 3, 2021He is coming.
And he brings the hope of a better world.
The oppressor will come to an end, and destruction will cease;
the aggressor will vanish from the land.
In love a throne will be established;
in faithfulness a man will sit on it –
one from the house of David –
one who in judging, seeks justice and speeds the cause of righteousness.
[Isaiah 16:4-5]
We hope and wait.
Amen
Autocracy
July 11, 2021Today’s prayer borrows from Psalm 83
See how the enemies of democracy are astir.
With cunning they conspire against your people; they plot against the freedoms you cherish.
“Come” they say. “Let us destroy this diverse nation, let democracy be no more.”
With one mind they plot together; they form an alliance against us.
All those who lie, those who deny justice, those who seek power at our expense,
Make them like tumbleweed, O Lord, like chaff before the wind.
As fire consumes the forest, or a flame sets mountains ablaze, so pursue them with your tempest and terrify them with your storm.
May their efforts perish in disgrace.
Cover their faces in shame, and let those who seek your love, your compassion, your mercy prevail.
Amen
Freedom
July 4, 2021On this 4th of July Lord help us pause and see how much we have to lose if we lose our democracy.
Move us away from the resentments, and divisions that enable the slow creep of autocracy.
May we recognize how much we use our shared freedoms of thought, expression, and association, and the vibrancy those lend to our communities.
Help us protect these for both ourselves and others, slowing the corrosive attacks on views that differ from our own, and challenging appeals to hate and fear.
For the growth of tyranny in its many forms will eventually threaten even those of us who enjoy quiet neighborhoods, regular schedules, good food, and adequate pay.
Without change, even we will some day awake and look at the wreckage and wonder, how did we go astray?
O Lord, do not abandon us to our sinful ways.
Awaken us, guide us, and help us to be better than we are.
Amen.
Prayers For Our Country 