This year has brought us one of the most divisive elective cycles in recent memory. Many people that I speak to, regardless of political affiliation, are not excited about the choices they have for President. Both candidates have characteristics that could be defined as “unfit,” whether it is in temperament, decision making, morality, unpredictability, criminal behavior, experience, judgment, health, or political vision.  It is in this season that we need to pray for our country more than we do for our political parties. We are a nation off-course and the choice of our leader will make irrevocable changes to the intellectual, emotional, spiritual, and moral direction we take as Americans.

Therefore, I would like to invite you to pray with me for our country. Over the next 7 days, I will be making a new post each day. Each post will include a link to a reading from the Psalms and a brief instruction on how to use this reading as a guide for prayer. Let us put aside our desire to see a specific person win the election and have the courage to pray boldly for God to stay his judgment and not give us a wicked ruler. Instead, may He place in office the man or woman who will lead us to be the country that God desires (and designed) us to be. 

Will you please pray with me?

Read Psalm 37:1-11

Identify what God is saying about Himself in this passage. Boil it down into a one or two-word summary (e.g., God is ____ ) and confess that truth back to God, asking Him to reveal Himself in this way through your day and this election cycle. For example, “God, Your word says that You are ______. Sometimes it is hard to see you this way, especially with all the distractions of life, so I pray that You will reveal Yourself in this way in my life today and for this country during this election.”

v.1-2: Confess your worry over this election and how you fear it may damage our country. Acknowledge that God is in control more than man and your intent is to place your trust in His will.

Confess that it often seems like evil people prosper. Ask that in this election the wicked will “fade like the grass and wither  like the green herb.”

v.3-4: Dedicate yourself to the LORD. Acknowledge that you are placing your trust in Him. Ask Him to show you how you can demonstrate each day that your faith is in Him, not in a political party or a person representing that party, to heal our country.

Commit yourself to doing good each day. Ask the Holy Spirit to reveal to you where your definition of “good” and God’s definition of “good” separates. Ask Him to produce the change within you that needs to be made so that you may live your life as defined by God’s worldview as revealed in scripture.

Ask God to shield this country from wickedness so that you may dwell in it and feed on faithfulness. Ask God to give you and the people of our nation the desires of His heart so that His purposes may be fulfilled.

v. 5-6: Rejoice that you have an active and an acting God. Ask Him to “bring forth your righteousness as the light and your justice as the noonday.”

v.7-9: Take a moment and be still. Let at least 20 seconds pass by in silence. Confess how hard it can be to be still before the LORD and why. Ask Him to give you the strength and the ability to wait patiently for Him, because you know this is another expression of putting your trust in Him.

Ask Him to give you peace, because you know that God is in control, not “the man who carries out evil devices!”

Ask God to keep you from anger and wrath! To shed your worry about this election because it tends only to evil. Ask that God will keep you and all Americans from becoming “evildoers” so that we are not cut off from Him. But may we all be those who wait for the LORD and inherit the land.

v.10-11: Give thanks that “in just a little while, the wicked will be no more;” that “though you look carefully at his place, he will not be there.” Not because man has triumphed in this election but because God has. Ask for meekness and the delight of abundant peace.

Thank Him for hearing your prayers and for answering them. In Jesus’ name, Amen.