As I woke up the morning after the election, admittedly feeling despondent about the results, my Bible opened up to Psalm 133, and these were the words that greeted me:
How good and pleasant it is
when brothers live together in unity!
It is like precious oil poured on the head,
running down on the beard,
running down on Aaron’s beard, down upon the collar of his robes.
It is as if the dew of Hermon
were falling on Mount Zion.
For there the LORD bestows his blessing,
even life forevermore. NIV
One thing we are not right now in America, is unified. With just slightly more than half of our country voting one way, and the 
rest another, we are a fractious, quarreling, divisive group, who have re-elected a President who must somehow put all of us Humpty-Dumpty people back together again.
Whether you are happy or sad about the election results, a few thoughts stand out to me in the midst of it all.
- God is not calling us to capitulate on our values and beliefs. He is calling us to pray. I am even more convinced of the need for prayer in America. We can follow Nehemiah’s example of prayer in Nehemiah 1:1-9 as he confessed and prayed for forgiveness for Israel before he began his task of rebuilding the wall. We have many problems facing us and much rebuilding that needs to be done on our country’s “walls.” We are facing trillions of dollars in debt, a “fiscal cliff” in January, illegal immigration, new health care, attacks on our embassies, continuing job losses, and social issues like same-sex marriage and abortion, just to name a few things. God reminds us in 2 Chronicles 7:14 that if we humble ourselves and pray and seek Him that He will hear us and heal our land. Let’s pray for God’s intervention in these areas.
- We can pray that our witness for Christ will shine brightly during these times. We need to each be growing our relationship with our Savior, being conformed to His likeness, and then praying for the boldness and the leading of the Holy Spirit to reach out to others as God opens up the opportunities. God’s plan does not necessarily include a comfy, safe life for each of us. We need to be courageous in our faith–as wise as serpents and as gentle as doves.
- Pray specifically for President Obama and Congress. As we intercede for godly wisdom, courage, bi-partisanship, biblical morals, honesty, protection, and God’s blessing on our nation, God can move to bring down the barriers that divide us. He is powerful and can do immeasurably more than we ask or think (Ephesians 3:20).
- Pray that God will raise up godly leaders for our nation. It’s not too early to begin praying for 2016!
Getting Practical
Let’s join together in a powerful prayer effort for our country. I’ve put together a few suggestions on ways to incorporate this.
Monthly themes
We can take a theme and pray it for an entire month.
- January–Debt, budget,
- February–Bi-partisanship
- March–Health care
- April–Jobs
- May–Biblical morals, revival, same-sex marriage
- June–Foreign policy
- July–Protection of life and the unborn
- August–Immigration
- September–Schools and teachers
- October–Religious freedom
- November–Godly leaders
- December–Military
Weekly Themes
If you prefer to pray for all of these every week, you could split them up the following way:
- Monday–Pray for debt, budget, and bi-partisanship
- Tuesday–Pray for health care and jobs
- Wednesday–Pray for biblical morals, revival, salvation, same-sex marriage and foreign policy
- Thursday–Pray for protection of life and the unborn and immigration
- Friday–Pray for schools and teachers and religious freedom
- Saturday–Pray for godly leaders and our military
- Sunday–Pray for President Obama
What are your feelings about praying for our nation? Please share any ways that you like to pray for America in the comments section.
Pray on!
Image courtesy of [Stuart Miles] / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
