Hear our prayer, Oh Lord

On the eve of a very pivotal election, I feel like I need to post something. Politics is a growing interest and passion for me, especially as I feel this country is headed for a very dark place. I am feeling the pull to get involved and help make change happen instead of simply complaining that it never does (or it changes for the worse). I'm still struggling with how to apply these forming interests but I'm definitely starting with being an educated voter. It's such a privilege and freedom to be able to elect our public officials, and as a citizen of the United States and a child of God, it is my responsibility. Our church began a week of prayer for our local communities, state and nation on Sunday, and Pastor David kicked it off with this incredible prayer. He prefaced it with saying that not all would be guilty of all these sins but that we need to humble our hearts and repent for what we are guilty of and realize that change starts with us. The people of God are the ones who need to stand up, cry out to Him and initiate change in such times as these. I wanted to share it with you here. I know it is long, but it is very convicting and an incredible way to enter into this new season of political change. Please read it carefully and pray it if you will. We, and this nation, are in desperate need of it.

"Oh Lord, you are Creator of heaven and earth and all exist to reflect your glory. We are your people, called out of darkness into your marvelous light, saved by the blood of Jesus, and sealed by your Holy Spirit unto the day of redemption. You have given us a new heart and our desire is to worship you, but our obedience is faulty and the temptations of the world and flesh and devil are strong. We live among a people that are in open rebellion against you, yet in honesty we need look no further than our own reflection to see the manifestations of that same rebellion. So rather that sit judgment upon their sins, Oh Lord, we instead take this time to confess the sins of our own house.

Father, we have sinned against you financially in that:
~Both publicly and privately we have relentlessly pursued for decades a life-style of conspicuous consumption, fueled by an insatiable appetite for debt.
~As individuals we have borrowed the inflated equity from our homes to finance our lavish and materialistic lifestyles.
~We reject one set of elected officials for another - self righteously condemning their greed and self-promoting ways while we ourselves regularly fail to humble our own hearts, resist our greed and serve our fellow man.

We have also sinned against you morally by:
~Decrying the sewage that pours forth from Hollywood while at the same time filling their coffers with the money you have entrusted to our care.
~Too many of our pastors condemn the vile and soul damaging perversion of pornography all the while gripped by their own dark and shameful lusts. Oh Lord, what hope do your people have when even their leaders seem powerless to resist?
~We justly condemn the perversion of homosexual marriage yet make a mockery out of heterosexual marriage by a divorce rate indistinguishable from society at large.
~We speak and write about 'family values' yet are mostly silent while our own young redefine the boundaries of morality in terms of modesty, sexual promiscuity, alcohol and drugs.

Furthermore, we have sinned against you evangelically in that:
~We lament the erosion of authority yet have contributed to it by our unwillingness to some under submission to the Word of God. By rejecting the spiritual oversight of our leaders we reserve to ourselves unprecedented latitude of private interpretation.
~We have misunderstood and misapplied the meaning of Christian love by tolerating virtually any and all deviant behavior and belief within the boundaries of professing Evangelicalism.
~In society we have privatized our faith and chosen to keep silent rather than rock the boat and speak out boldly for our King, thus contributing to the damning notion that truth is relative.
~We demonstrate a hardness of heart and judgmental spirit concerning those caught in the sin of homosexual attraction by mocking their condition and withholding compassion from them as individuals made in the image of God.
~We care little, and pray even less for the conversion of the lost and instead withdraw to Christian ghettos in a foolish attempt to avoid the contamination of sin - rejecting in the process your purpose for our lives.
~We have failed to pray consistently for our leaders and instead through omission and commission we have allowed ourselves to become a political special interest group to whom cynical and self-serving politicians toss a few scraps in exchange for our vote.
~We portray the local church as the spiritual equivalent of a fast food restaurant, designed to meet our needs rather than the sovereign creation of Almighty God, through which you display the Glory of Christ to an unbelieving world. Our inability to love and serve one another in humility leads to a willingness to abandon the church rather than stay and work out our differences, and communicates to the world that Christian unity is no deeper than the local Rotary Club.

Oh God, any one of these corporate or individual sins would be more than enough to justify you casting us eternally from your presence, and yet we remain secure in Christ bound to you by grace. It is based upon the merits of Christ we turn from our confession and make these requests:
~That you would continue to extend your mercy and grace in saving people from the ravages of sin.
~That we, the church, would regain our sense of urgency for preaching the Gospel and making disciples.
~That you would restrain the forces that desire to squelch the Gospel message and bar it from the public square. If in your providence we are entering into a long night of darkness that you would grant us boldness to speak out for Christ and suffer joyfully for the sake of the Name.
~That you would help us not to place our faith in elected officials but to understand that true and lasting change only comes as a result of conversion and that we would thus utilize our opportunities to impact society one person at a time.
~That your common grace would continue to be poured out and that our republic would prosper spiritually, relationally, and materially (Jer. 29:7).
~That you would enable us not to 'pine for the past,' in which lay the seeds of our present distress, but that you would help us live as lights among a wicked and perverse generation.
~That you would give our elected leaders wisdom and integrity to govern an increasingly factious and uncooperative citizenry.
~That you would grant Solomonic Wisdom to our elected leaders as they face the complex and emotionally charged issues of economic stagnation, immigration, balkanization, and global conflict.
~That Christian men and women would continue to be willing to sacrifice career and fortune in order to humbly serve their fellow citizens as elected representatives.
~That you would utilize the pressures of public office to cause unbelieving politicians to be open to hear and believe the Gospel of grace.

Finally, we thank you our Father for...
~Salvation by grace through faith and not as a result of human effort - for none can be saved.
~Enabling us to understand and believe that you are sovereign over leaders and nations, and that you providentially rule your world.
~The privilege to live in a country where the transition of power from one group to another occurs by ballot rather than bayonet.
Amen."
~Written by Pastor David Forsyth