Hey MABC family! Thank you for the weekend away to visit family and friends. We were blessed to watch our two granddaughters perform in their fall recital. Our youngest performed for the first time and was extremely nervous. She said her “ankles were shaking” and she felt like she was going to pass out. Thankfully it was a duet with her older sister who is becoming a veteran on the stage.
We have one week in the books since the election of 2024. Our new president has been selected and he begins to put the next administration together. This was a crazy election as many people I talked to wondered if this was the best that this country could put up to run for the top leadership position. No matter how it turned out, we are called to pray for our leaders (1 Tim 2:1-2) whether they are “red” or “blue.” With that, here is a prayer I have been formulating in my mind that I can pray faithfully for our country.
Heavenly Father, we lift up those who lead our country. We pray that you would grant them wisdom and discernment and that they would understand that “fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom (Prov. 9:10).” We ask, Lord, that you would place Christ followers in their path to help them revere and respect the Lord. Lord, we pray that these leaders would humble themselves before you (Luke 14:11). I know that humility is not seeing self as better than others but putting others before self. Lord, help our leaders seek to elevate others over self and serve others as Jesus did even at the Last Supper (John 13:1-17) even though they would betray him, desert him and deny him. Father, help our leaders to unite the people and not seek retribution for the wrongs they perceive have been done by others in the political arena. Jesus, in his most vulnerable human moment on the cross, asked his Father to forgive those who had wronged him (Luke 23:34). Finally Lord, I ask that those in leadership who profess to be followers of your son Jesus not forget their real citizenship (Phil. 3:20-21) and do things that elevate their earthly home at the expense of Kingdom work. Amen.
This would have been my prayer no matter who won the elections this year. Romans 13 says that ALL leaders have been placed in their position of authority by God himself. In my feeble human brain, I sometimes don’t understand why but I also know that scripture says I never will because “his thoughts are not my thoughts and his ways not my way (Isa. 55:8-9). All I know is that he has a plan for me (Jer. 29:11) and it is for “good not for disaster, to give me a future and a hope.” However, we need to make sure we read verses 12 and 13 in Jeremiah 19 which say if we pray he will listen and if we seek him with our whole heart, we will find him.
That’s my prayer for you all. Would you pray and seek him with all your heart?
Pastor Rick
