A Prayer

                                                           A Prayer

Hear my prayer, O Lord.
We need You. If there has ever been a time when You were needed more I can't remember it, nor can I even imagine needing You more than now. We need You in our hearts, in our homes, in our financial institutions, in our industries, in our entertainment, in our nation and in Your church. As a warrior nation we remember this Memorial Day weekend our fallen soldiers.Thank-you for their sacrifice. We were born fighting and have kept fighting for nearly 240 years. We like to believe we stood for justice and right and mostly we can honesty say that. But now, we also need a different kind of warrior,God; one that wages battle for truth, Your truth. We need warriors that battle with prayer, and who's lives are marked with grace, peace and love. Where are Your warriors who engage the enemy with nobility born of courage, courage born of conviction, conviction born of character, character shaped by righteousness, and righteousness birthed by faith in Christ? Our adversary has turned our gaze to greed, our joy to seeking pleasure, our hope for help to politics and politicians. Forgive us, O God, for looking everywhere but to You in sweet surrender of our wills to Yours.

We need You, Lord. Our greatest enemies are from within now. There are fightings within and fears without because You are not within and we are without You in so many of our dealings with families, friends, issues, and nations. Help us seek a higher good than the American dream. Help us seek a Heavenly Kingdom and grant us a vision for that raises our lives and our nation to that higher plane. I pray these things happen without force or coercion but only by an outpouring of your Spirit in response to a humbled church in a stumbling nation seeking Your blessing in prayer and obedience. I would ask this awakening before we go the way of ancient Israel into captivity. Indeed, much of our nation is already in captivity to death, license, and the pursuit of self.  Grant that we might lose ourselves in the pursuit of Your glory and in that glory may we see true life, eternal and abundant.

Awaken us O Lord. Awaken each son and daughter of Yours born of Your Spirit to the joy, the hope, the freedom and justice that is ours in Your Kingdom. Awaken a longing for fellowship with You in every thought, movement and moment of our days. Pursue us with Your love and may we stop in repentance long enough to be caught by Your grace. We are in trouble and our nation, our world needs You. Thank-you for the good news that You may be found even as You have sought us; that You may be known even as You have known our sin and deceptions; that You may be trusted and obeyed even as You grant us the ability to trust and the strength to obey. Sweep away our apathy to the Person of Christ and the things of Your Spirit and fill our spirits with the riches of Your Presence and the glory of Your cause.

Thank-you for never surrendering our souls to disregard and our hearts to unfinished work. Thank-you that You will not stop until Christ is formed in the lives of Your sons and daughters. Now I ask that you raise an Army of warriors for this nation, her homes, her institutions, her future to wage war by prayer. May they see Your hand act in the salvation of the lost  and in a righteousness that exalts this nation even as she exalts Your Son, even Jesus, Our Lord and Savior....

Amen

PS: An Invitation: Please join me in prayer, wherever you do your devotions, each Wednesday, at a time between 7 and 9 AM to pray for a Spiritual Awakening in our nation. Join me from your home, car, cart, or wherever you may find yourself in this commitment of prayer. It's your choice if you tell me or not, but please pray.