A Prayer for Our Country

Praying for your country does not mean you are pledging allegiance to your country above God. Prayer for our country and its leaders is a profound way to engage in politics faithfully.

During this series on Faithful Political Perspectives, I wanted to emphasize prayer because if we're not inviting God into the conversation, then no fruit can come from this content. Take time to invite God to the worries on your heart about the state and future of our country, and release your burdens to Him.

A Prayer for Our Country

Dear God,

You call us friend, child, beloved. You set the nations in order and direct government authorities as you see fit. You go before us, and you stand with us. You, alone, are omnipotent and omnipresent, and to you, glory is due above all else.

You see the pain in our country—the homelessness, the spiritually lost, the burden of healthcare costs, the changes in education, the division among churches, cities, and states, and you know the aches of our hearts for things to be made right and whole again.

God, you are Lord over all, and we trust that you know what the best path forward is for all humanity, even in the United States of America. Heavenly Father, we know that our land is not our own. We know that this little kingdom we’re trying to build doesn’t hold a match to the Kingdom of God. Remind us of your priorities so we can live accordingly.

Lord, we know you care deeply about all people, whether American citizens or not, and we pray that you would break our hearts for what breaks yours. As we look to our leaders of this nation, we pray that you would remind us of their authority in contrast to your greatness.

We pray for our leaders—locally and federally. We pray that you would meet those who don’t yet know you and shine a light on any darkness of their hearts they might be hiding. We pray for those who do know you to be strengthened by the truth of your Word and to turn to it for guidance when needed.

We pray for the leaders of our nation to honor goodness, even if they don’t know you, that you would put people in their lives to point them toward an ethic of honoring and caring for all your people—young and old, rich and poor, educated or uneducated, citizens or not—in a way that respects the order and sustainability of our country but ensures people can flourish.

Finally, God, we pray for healing in our land. For the division across legislative lines, for the hatred online, for the families separated by addictions, for the loneliness and mental health epidemic of this generation, and for the lies and slander distributed everywhere we turn.

May you restore our hearts from the inside out, and let us be lights to our communities so that healing and unity can be possible on a larger scale. May you bring hope to the hopeless in this country, especially the future of our political system that has left everyone weary of our limited and poor options.

We give you the future of our country because we trust you more than the donkey or the elephant. We trust the Lion and the Lamb, the beginning and the end, the Alpha and Omega, the Prince of Peace, to heal our souls and restore our nation to be the land of prosperity and freedom for all that it promises to be. And not our will, God, but your will be done, as it is in Heaven.

You are good, God, and we trust you.

Amen.