Prayer for a Nation in Turmoil

My husband and I walked into The Well Church in Manhattan this past Sunday with heavy hearts, like so many Americans, weighed down by the week’s violence, the 24th anniversary of 9/11, and the deep divisions in our nation. We nearly stayed home to livestream, too weary to face the city.

The Well is a five-year-old church plant led by pastor Aaron Bjerke, formerly of Redeemer Presbyterian Church, founded by Timothy Keller. It meets in Midtown’s Scandinavian House, a cultural center with an auditorium, restaurant, and gift shop.

Midway through the service, a parishioner stepped forward to offer the “prayers of the people”—a brief corporate prayer before about a hundred gathered in person and online. In just a few minutes, it transformed the room. Tears welled in people’s eyes. My husband and I left convicted, confessing our own sinful contributions. I saw the prayer ripple outward, shared across social media throughout the day.

With the church’s permission, I wanted to share it in the hopes it offered as much comfort as it did our congregation.

Heavenly Father, we come to you today to offer up our prayers as a politically diverse—and in that way, spiritually healthy—community in response to political division in our country. We ask for grace as political violence, hatred, and mockery continue to spew across our land. We know that vitriol towards one another is not your best for us as spiritual creatures, and we ask that you intervene to bring sanity to our nation.

This week brought both clarity and more confusion as we witnessed the national fabric continue to tear at the news of Charlie Kirk’s assassination and yet another school shooting. We are shaken by the assassination of 32-year-old Kirk who was a beloved Republican thought leader, husband, and father of two young children, including a three-year-old girl, who like my three-year old, loves blueberries. We are shaken by the shooting of 18-year-old Matthew Silverstone, among other students at Evergreen High School. We pray for these victims’ friends and family and the classmates and audience members who were also part of these events. Comfort them as they grieve, Lord. We ask that they trust that vengeance belongs to you and you alone. We also pray for the Colorado school shooter Desmond Holly and his family and alleged Kirk assassin Tyler Robinson and his family.

The national news media, politicians and individual social influencers would have us be manipulated into believing false choices such as the need for all Christians to be conservative or liberal—whatever that means today—or even apolitical. Help us whether spiritually curious or followers of Jesus to be reminded of our true identity and regardless of our distinctive normative political frames, to recenter on your path, rejecting the lie that people who are different do not deserve God’s love or compassion. Forgive us for allowing mass communication to warp us to being desensitized. Forgive us for thinking that any of us are good apart from you. There is none good apart from you, not even one. Instead, renew us to see the glory in one another as bearers of your image.

As a result of all that is wrong, it seems that many of us have forgotten your complex design of healing in an imperfect world: How you heal people, your patience for us, and your high expectations of us following our conversion to faith. Many today want others to change to fit their sense of godliness by force, but we know that is not your will. Jesus’ death was based on his choice to endure the cross, which allowed him to raise to perfect power to heal us all. We cannot force others to change to what we think they need to be or do; that is not your way.

Lord, you challenge us to have patience in suffering knowing that one day you will wipe away all our tears. But more false beliefs, especially across your evangelical church in the US, skew our comprehension of your healing path and your timeline for renewal. Yet, Lord, while we wait, and we must hope.

While I understand that I am not entitled to a perfect political system, I do long for open debate and civility in the US to be possible and not infringed on; lifted up as evidence of your vision working itself out in creation. Over the last 30+ years, we have seen a decline in public trust and political surveillance that is so extreme, our lawmakers who differ can no longer be seen in public modeling healthy debate, because doing makes certain political ruin. Meanwhile the great majority of people, regardless of spiritual and religious position, do not see themselves in the candidates who garner the most attention. We know we desperately need a new chapter in US politics, and we pray that you deliver us from all forms of evil that eat away at our souls.

What we are all experiencing politically leads us to be distracted from our true calling as Christians—to share the Good News of Jesus’s spiritual path and work for the renewing of this world. Christian scripture teaches that every nation, tribe and tongue will learn about the spirituality of Jesus. Wisdom teaches that such diversity, while being part of gospel mission and vision, will put your people at odds. While we disagree, may we never abuse Christian scripture to twist it to what we want it to be, but instead earnestly seek out your wisdom to practice our faith, family life, and politics through dwelling on your ancient scriptures through mediation.

Lord, we know that when we do not know what to pray, we can always pray, “Our Father who is in heaven, hallowed be your name,” and, “Search me and know me, O God,” because these prayers acknowledge our deep need for the Creator and open us up to the possibility of what we might do to help in these times of need in our country. May we not wait on the leadership that we think we need but rather submit to your will, to being used by you to promote the healing our country needs now.

Lord, we pray that you receive our corporate prayer, recognizing that we are one body made of many individuals, and ask for continued grace to have fellowship as that body. May we collectively grieve all that is wrong and center our hearts back on you.

In Jesus name,

Amen.