This week I received Heart Cries to Heaven, a new book from DayOne that is a compilation of prayers composed by David Campell, pastor of Grace Baptist Church in Carlisle, PA. One of those prayers stood out to me as I considered the week to come in which Americans will head to the polls and elect their new representatives. Here is a “Prayer for Godly Leaders.”
Our great and gracious God,
We pray that you will give us leaders who fear your name. We ask for those who are in authority over us
that they may be men and women of Christian integrity,
men and women imbued with the principles of the Word of God,
who will themselves walk in your ways and set an example in public office.
We ask, Lord, that you will not give us up to the sway of those who care nothing for you and for your laws.
Give us godly leaders, we pray.
We pray, too, for godly leaders within the church.
We pray for the reformation of the visible church and for great revival within its midst. May those who are in the positions of leadership manifest the same qualities that we see manifest supremely in our Lord Jesus Christ, and that, under the leadership of such men, your church would flourish.
Give us all grace, we pray,
Everyone who is a member of this congregation or of another congregation, to be a good and faithful servant of Jesus Christ, each one of us. We pray that you will bless our time together to that end.
We pray that you will stand with your servant as he opens up the Word,
That you will put words in his mouth,
That you will give to us illumined minds and hearts,
and we pray that you will make that Word
written upon our hearts
and make our time together to be truly
a means of grace,
that we, in this week that is before us, may
walk in your ways.
Hear us, O God, we pray, and these prayers and the many others that in the silence of our hearts we would lift to you, the omniscient God.
Hear us, for Jesus’ sake.
Amen.
