A Prayer

Father,

We have an inauguration this week. Once again, there will be someone new leading our nation. In obedience to Your commands we pray for the new president and those who lead with him. We pray that You will use this leadership so that we might live peaceful and quiet lives, that we might grow in godliness and be dignified in every way.

We pray this, Father, also because we live in troubled times. Ours is very much a divided country. That has been the case for some time, but now it is becoming more evident. It is becoming more vehement. It is becoming more violent. This is not good. Times of social chaos can oftentimes get in the way of Your Church spreading the Good News of the Kingdom.

As people become more hardened about the situation, working hard to hold on to what they think is important, they can also become hardened to You, unwilling to hear Your words of change.

We ask Father, that You would bless us with the ability to be peacemakers. Bless us with an ability to live the Gospel out in the world so that we would have opportunities to speak about the Prince of Peace who blesses with peace, first with You and then with others.

For this to happen we need to grasp better the deeper things of the Gospel. Help us to do better living what it means that You are our Father, that Jesus is our elder brother and that the Spirit really is within us. In the power of these truths grasped more deeply, use us out in the world.

So, as we interact with others and discuss what is going on in our country, grant us the ability to respect all with whom we speak and about whom we speak. Give us love for those who disagree with us, sometimes in ways that are not kind. And bless our efforts to persuade those who are trying to prove how right they are, that they should, instead, be trying to bring healing.

We pray Father that as You work through those in high places of authority and as You work through us - we pray that You would bring about a time of peace based on the Gospel of our Lord Jesus, through whom we pray. Amen.

1 Timothy 2:1-4