Prayers for our country and President (updated)

I will be posting several prayers for our country and new president. I invite readers to submit prayers in the comments – either your own prayer, or a link to a prayer you have found online.

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A Prayer for the President of the United States and All in Civil Authority

O Lord our Governor, whose glory is in all the world: we commend this nation to Your merciful care, that being guided by Your Providence, we may dwell secure in Your peace.  Grant to our President Barack, and to all leaders in authority, wisdom, strength and courage to know and do Your will.  Fill them with the love of truth and righteousness, and make them ever-mindful of their calling to serve the people in Your faith and fear; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, world without end.  Amen

You can find this prayer and other prayers for our President, country and leaders here.

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A Prayer for Our Country by Peter Marshall (former Senate Chaplain)
(This was included in Sunday’s service leaflets at Truro Church on Sunday.  Unfortunately I do not have more exact attribution details.)

God of our Ancestors, whose almighty hand has made and preserved our nation; grant that we may understand what it is we commemorate and celebrate [today].  May we remember how bitterly our freedom was won, the down-payment that was made for it, the installments that have been made since this Republic was born, and the price that must yet be paid for our liberty.  May it ever be understood that our liberty is under God and can be found nowhere else.  May our faith be something that is not merely stamped on our coins, but expressed in our lives.  To the extent that America honors You, O God, bless America.  Keep her as true as You have kept her free, and make her as good as You have made her rich.  We pray in the name of Him whose service is perfect freedom, Jesus our Lord.  Amen.

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The Rev. Albert Mohler has a prayer for President Obama on his blog today.  Here’s an excerpt:

Our Father, Lord of all creation, Father of our Lord Jesus Christ:  We pray today with a sense of special urgency and responsibility.  We come before you to pray for our new President, Barack Obama, and for all those in this new administration who now assume roles of such high responsibility.

We know that you and you alone are sovereign; that you rule over all, and that you alone are able to keep and defend us.  We know that our times are in your hands, and that “the king’s heart is like channels of water in the hand of the Lord” [Proverbs 21:1].  Our confidence is in you and in you alone.  We come before you as a people who acknowledge our constant need for your provision, wisdom, and protection.

Father, we pray today for Barack Obama as he takes office as President of the United States.  We pray that you will show the glory of your name in our times and in these days, confounding the wisdom of the wise, thwarting the plans of the arrogant, and vindicating those who do justice and practice righteousness.

Father, we pray with thanksgiving for the gift of government and the grace of civic order.  Thank you for giving us rulers and for knowing our need for laws and ordered life together.  Thank you for this nation and the blessings we know as its citizens.  Thank you for freedoms unprecedented in human history.  We understand that these freedoms come with unprecedented opportunities.

Lord, we pray with thanksgiving for the joy and celebration reflected on millions of faces who never expected to look to the President of the United States and see a person who looks like themselves.  Father, thank you for preserving this nation to the moment when an African-American citizen will take the oath of office and become our President.  Thank you for the hope this has given to so many, the pride emerging in hearts that had known no such hope, and the pride that comes to a people who have experienced such pain at the hands of fellow citizens, simply because of the color of their skin.  Father, we rejoice in every elderly face that reflects such long-sought satisfaction and in every young face that expresses such unrestrained joy.  May this become an open door for a vision of race and human dignity that reflects your glory in our differences, and not our corruption of your gift.

Father, protect this president, we pray.  We pray that you will surround this president and his family, along with all our leaders, with your protection and sustenance.  May he be protected from evil acts and evil intentions, and may his family be protected from all evil and harm.

Read it all

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Updates:

A video of Rick Warren’s invocation can be found on You Tube, here.

Here is the text of Rick Warren’s prayer, courtesy of Christianity Today’s blog:

Let us pray.

Almighty God, our Father, everything we see and everything we can’t see exists because of you alone. It all comes from you. It all belongs to you. It all exists for your glory.

History is your story. The Scripture tells us, “Hear O Israel, the Lord is our God. The Lord is One.” And you are the compassionate and merciful one. And you are loving to everyone you have made.

Now, today, we rejoice not only in America’s peaceful transfer of power for the 44th time. We celebrate a hingepoint of history with the inauguration of our first African American president of the United States. We are so grateful to live in this land, a land of unequaled possibility, where the son of an African immigrant can rise to the highest level of our leadership. And we know today that Dr. King and a great cloud of witnesses are shouting in heaven.

Give to our new President, Barack Obama, the wisdom to lead us with humility, the courage to lead us with integrity, the compassion to lead us with generosity. Bless and protect him, his family, Vice President Biden, the cabinet, and every one of our freely elected leaders.

Help us, O God, to remember that we are Americans, united not by race, or religion, or blood, but to our commitment to freedom and justice for all. When we focus on ourselves, when we fight each other, when we forget you, forgive us. When we presume that our greatness and our prosperity is ours alone, forgive us. When we fail to treat our fellow human beings and all the earth with the respect that they deserve, forgive us. And as we face these difficult days ahead, may we have a new birth of clarity in our aims, responsibility in our actions, humility in our approaches, and civility in our attitudes, even when we differ.

Help us to share, to serve and to seek the common good of all. May all people of good will today join together to work for a more just, a more healthy and a more prosperous nation and a peaceful planet. And may we never forget that one day all nations and all people will stand accountable before you. We now commit our new president and his wife, Michelle and his daughters, Malia and Sasha, into your loving care.

I humbly ask this in the name of the one who changed my life, Yeshua, Isa, Jesus [Spanish pronunciation], Jesus, who taught us to pray:

“Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.”

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