A Prayer for Our Nation’s Leaders
Dear Heavenly Father,
As our nation undergoes the pressure of a Presidential Impeachment trial, we pray to you.
We confess our concern to you. The partisanship of those who serve us and of our neighbors in our communities deeply burdens us, even as we humbly sense our own responsibility. We recognize that this trial has potential to exasperate it. Our hearts break as we consider how divided we are. Neighbors angry at neighbors. Impatience and the desire to win at all costs seem to permeate so many. The heaviness of unkind people, words that tear down across social media, and the bitterness of many rough years, all bring us to our knees to ask for your help.
However, we recognize this as part of your providential plan. We know this does not surprise you. Therefore, we stop to pray as you told us.
Therefore I exhort first of all that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks be made for all men, 2 for kings and all who are in authority, that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and reverence (1 Tim 2:1-2).
For those Senators who sit as jurors in this trial, we pray that they have wisdom, insight, and discernment. We ask that they exercise patience, perseverance, and forbearance with each other. For those who make decisions, please grant them skill. Please remind them of their responsibility to serve their constituents and the American people. We ask that you would give them courage to not follow partisanship as usual. As they sit and listen, please work in their hearts according to your will. We agree with the writer of Proverbs,
The king’s heart is in the hand of the Lord,
Like the rivers of water;
He turns it wherever He wishes (Prov 21:1).
We ask that you would turn the hearts of the Senators as according to Your will.
Related to the other participants in the trial – the House managers and the President’s defense team – we pray for Your will to be done. Clearly both sides have deeply held and entrenched positions. Both sides come to this trial with an agenda. For both sides we ask that You would please providentially work according to Your will.
For the Chief Justice, please grant him wisdom as he sits on the bench and moderates. Where necessary, please give him the courage to do what is right. Help him lead well in his capacity.
For the President, we ask that You would grant him wisdom, insight, and discernment today as well. Please do a work in his heart too. Strengthen him we pray as he leads the country even during this time of waiting. We ask that you would help calm his words, tones, and actions. As our leader, we recognize his significant weaknesses. Yet, You ask us to pray for him so we do even now. Please work in his heart and life. Please bless the people of the country according to Your will through him and his administration.
We acknowledge our own attitudes today as well. We seek to discern where our own hearts are full of bitterness, malice, anger, or partisanship. Please grant us wisdom to know and control our own hearts as we observe what happens. Please grant us a neutral spirit, submissive to Your providential will as it plays out in this trial, of which we are only observers. God, please grant us patience, slow speech, and hearts full of mercy for our countrymen. May you help us shine as light in the world throughout this trial, rather than just create additional hardships on each other. Lord, may we all be committed to the psalmist’s prayer:
Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart
Be acceptable in Your sight,
O Lord, my strength and my Redeemer (Psalm 19:14).
We confess our trust to You. Our confidence is in You alone. We ask that Your will be done. As much as possible, may we honor and glorify You throughout this trial and its aftermath. We desire to humbly watch, gently speak, patiently respond, and graciously endure.
In the name of Jesus we pray,
Amen
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