prayer

Psalms for the Election – Day 3

/ mhowellw / Leave a comment

abraham-lincoln-quote-about-americas-destruction

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 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 38

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.

This may be a particularly difficult chapter to read and pray, especially in the context of the election and the sins of our nation. Please take a moment to ask the Holy Spirit to give you ears that can hear His voice and to soften your heart to what needs to be prayed. If you have never prayed for your nation before, please read Nehemiah 1:5-11. This should provide an example of what needs to be done today. Also, if you need help understanding the difference between iniquity, trespasses, and sins, please read my previous post Iniquity, Trespasses, and Sin.

v. 1-2 Consider how far we have strayed from the LORD as a nation. What grieves you? What feels like arrows have sunk into you when you consider it? Name these things one by one. Ask the LORD to not rebuke us in anger nor discipline us in wrath for these things.

v.3-4 Confess how far we have missed the mark as a country and as a culture.  Admit that we deserve God’s judgment for these things and how we are wasting away. Specify how the health in the bones of this nation is depleted because of our sin.

Confess the condition of our hearts (our iniquities) and how they weigh us down like a heavy burden that is too heavy for us.

v. 5-8 Contemplate how, because they have remained untreated, our nation’s sins have affected us. How infected have our wounds become? Confess the foolishness of America and the anguish it brings to your heart. Allow God to hear your mourning.

v. 9-14 Lay out your longings before God. Come boldly before His throne of grace and ask the desire of your heart for our nation. Outline how our sins have not only hurt us domestically but also internationally. How now our “friends and companions stand aloof…and my nearest kin far off.” How “those who seek my life lay their snares; those who seek my hurt speak of ruin and meditate treachery all day long.” And how our response is “like a deaf man; I do not hear, like a mute man who does not open his mouth. I have become like a man who does not hear and in whose mouth are no rebukes.”

v .15-17 Confess that we are waiting for the LORD. How we know that only the LORD is our answer! Ask Him to hold us up when our foot slips on the path of recovery and that our enemies will not mock us, which may cause discouragement and relapse. Rather, may they see God working through our country, through our leaders, and through our people so that we may not fall, even in the midst of our national pain.

v.18-22 Confess the condition of our hearts as a people. Ask for forgiveness for our sins. Ask God to protect us, despite how numerous our foes may be and how others may render us evil because we follow after good.

Ask God to not forsake us but to redeem us! Ask Him to give us the fulfillment of His promises. To come quickly to help us. To keep us from destroying ourselves and losing the precious freedoms with which He has blessed us. To be our LORD and our salvation!

Psalms for the Election – Day 2

/ mhowellw / Leave a comment

quote-to-those-who-cite-the-first-amendment-as-reason-for-excluding-god-from-more-and-more-ronald-reagan-55-97-14

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 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 37:27-40

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.

v. 27-29 Ask God to give you, our nation, and our nominees a heart for good and not evil. May evil be repulsive to our souls and justice a delight. Ask that we will be a people filled with righteousness so that we may never lose our land but will inherit it and dwell upon it forever. Ask that we will not fall victim to government tyranny but that we will retain the precious freedoms with which God has provided us.

v. 30-31 Ask God to give us more than intuition in this election. Ask Him to give us wisdom and the ability to articulate it to others. May our tongue speak justice, so that truth abounds in the marketplace as well as on the ballot. Ask God to keep His law within our hearts so that we do not slip, either in our daily lives or in the electoral booth.

v. 32-34 Confess that “the wicked watches for the righteous and seek to put him to death” and that we are easy prey if God abandons us. Ask that God will express His power on behalf of the righteous and that He will not allow false accusations to condemn them. But may the righteous “wait for the LORD and keep His way” while the wicked are cut off.

v. 35-40 Rejoice that God does not permit a wicked, ruthless person to endure but instead, He upholds the blameless and the upright. Ask God to make us a people of peace and to give us a future while the those who seek to turn us away from Him and His ways are “altogether destroyed.” Praise Him that our salvation does not come from a Republican or a Democrat but from the LORD. Ask Him to help us in this election cycle and to deliver us; deliver us from the wicked and save us because we take refuge in God.

Thank Him for hearing and answering these prayers.

In Jesus’ name, Amen.

Psalms for the Election – Day 1

/ mhowellw / 3 Comments

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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.