Tuesday Prayer

July 3, 2018

The psalms help us pray. I use them to give me words I cannot express, either out of speechlessness or ignorance. When I am speechless due to joy or grief, the psalms give me words to pray. When I am ignorant of what needs to be prayed, the psalms gently guide me. Today, the day before the 4th of July, America’s Independence Day, I invite you to allow Psalm 72 to guide our prayers. It is a prayer for the king. While we do not have a king, I use this psalm to pray for our nation and our leaders, from the president to the most local official.

Let us pray.

“Give the King your justice, O God, and your righteousness to a king’s son. May he judge your people with righteousness, and your poor with justice.”

God, give our elected officials a sense of your love for justice and righteousness. Give them the ability to discern your righteousness in their decisions, and keep them from the temptation to overlook the poor and powerless. Turn our nation to care for the poor. Our nation’s history is rife with injustice to the poor. Forgive us. Help us repent. Show us the way.

“May the mountains yield prosperity for the people, and the hills, in righteousness.”

Help us to see any type of prosperity as a gift from you, to be stewarded in righteousness. Give us the compassion to love and welcome those who come from other nations to participate in this prosperity. Keep us from the temptation of assuming that prosperity is a marker of privilege. Rather, help us see any prosperity as a marker of responsibility.

“May he defend the cause of the poor of the people, give deliverance to the needy, and crush the oppressor.”

God, all too often prosperity leads to a fear of scarcity. Fear of scarcity leads to oppression. Help us to live and use our prosperity in a way that defends the cause of the poor, that gives deliverance to the needy, and that eliminates the core cause of impoverishment and neediness – the oppressor. If we ever become the oppressor, send your prophets to speak truth to power so that we can repent.

May our elected officials lead lives of service that proclaim this: “For he delivers the needy when they call, the poor and those who have no helper. He has pity on the weak and the needy, and saves the lives of the needy. From oppression and violence he redeems their life; and precious is their blood in his sight.”

Lord, give us leaders who deliver the needy and the poor. Give us compassionate leaders who do not see the needy, week, or poor as burdens. Give us leaders who care about those for whom too few care.

On this national holiday, we pray all this for our nation and its leaders. Help us always to see our citizenship first in your Kingdom over any earthly nation. For our leaders, and ourselves in our own forms of leadership, we pray all this in Jesus’ name.

Amen.