Lord, guide us to a new era of care, compassion, and community.
Help us to realize that wealth is not merit,
Oppression is not righteous, and
Inequity does not help us prosper.
Let us overcome fear, reject hate, and find the strength to pursue your ways of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.*
Guide us O Lord. Amen
* Galatians 5:22-23.
Lord, please keep this nation under your care and guide us as we vote that we may become a people at peace among ourselves and a blessing to other nations of the earth. Renew the ties of mutual regard on which our civic life depends. Send us honest and able leaders with the care and compassion to help heal our divides so that we may all live in justice and peace. Help us rebuild our common life. Amen
Adapted from The Book of Common Prayer.
On this July 4, thinking about the freedoms we currently enjoy and the challenges we face, we offer this prayer from the Episcopal Book of Common Prayer:
“Almighty God, to whom we must account for all of our powers and privileges: Guide the people of the United States in the election of officials and representatives; that, by faithful administration and wise laws, the rights of all may be protected and our nation enabled to fulfill your purposes; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen”
And may we engage as citizens with all of the seriousness and effort, and the care and compassion, that good self-government demands, so we might live in peace and prosper together, one nation, indivisible. Amen
You can find past July 4 prayers here:
We 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
He 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
Today’s prayer is from Psalm 72, v. 12-14
For he will deliver the needy who cry out,
the afflicted who have no-one to help.
He will take pity on the weak and the needy
and save the needy from death.
He will rescue them from oppression and violence,
for precious is their blood in his sight.
Amen
This day Lord we remember and commit to your care all those who fought over the generations to save our world from tyranny and anarchy, and for those, both military and civilian, who are in the struggle still to preserve our democracy. John Dewey said that democracy needed to be reborn in every generation, and we confess Lord that we have been poor midwives. Help us recover and recommit to liberty and justice for all. Help us Lord extend your love and forgiveness to each other, and to move forward with care, particularly for the least among us. Amen
Today’s prayer borrows from Psalm 46.
God is our refuge and strength, an ever present help in trouble.
Therefore we will not fear, even as the very foundations of our democracy come under attack, and the political norms that gird our Constitution are threatened in the swelling waves of extreme partisanship and disinformation.
We will not fear for we know that God is with us, and the truth will someday set us free to pursue His paths of justice and peace.
Amen
When the foundations are being destroyed, what can the righteous do? Ps. 11:3.
Lord please give us the wisdom to see the damage being done to our democracy by those who would mislead, deflect, disrupt for the sake of disruption and power, and deny the humanity of others.
Give us the courage to learn, witness, to speak up and out, to protect the right of all to vote and be heard.
Help us to connect to our fellow citizens and commit to their well-being.
Lord, help us renew and nurture our country’s ideal of liberty and justice for all.
And as we engage, defend, and rebuild may we trust in your mercy and justice, and follow your paths, committing our efforts to your wisdom and guidance. (Pr. 3:5-6; 16:3)
Help us Lord to resist tyranny in all of its forms.
Amen
Prayers For Our Country 