Misplaced & Remade | A Prayer for Election Day

God of every country, of every nation, of every land;

We come to you this morning with our hearts in our hands.

We woke anxious, slept uneasy, and rise to meet the day with worry tucked inside our chests.

 

We are not a people of easy trust,

and yet,

we find we have placed our trust in all the wrong places:

in man,

in kings,

in policies,

in politicians.

 

In infidelity, we gave our hearts to another.

We scooped the fire of fear into our laps,

tread the burning coals of nationalism,

and sit here wondering why we blister and burn.

 

So, on this morning of anxiety, we turn our weary eyes to You.

In the sobriety of election morning, we repent

of our misplaced affections and misguided fear,

of our disproportionate anger and disbelieving faith.

 

And in the humility of our broken humanity we ask for You to remake us in Your image:

Remake us as justice-doers: speaking, standing, working towards justice for all, on earth as it will be in heaven.

Remake us as mercy-lovers: watching our hearts for hardness, constantly tilling the soil in our souls.

Remake us as peacemakers: sowing words and deeds of peace because You are the Prince of our eternal Peace.

Remake us as steadfast saints: holding tightly to the hope that while everything around us changes You never will.

Remake us as members of Your heavenly Kingdom more than we are citizens of a broken democracy.

 

Remind us that long before America was noted on the pages of history’s books,

and long after America ceases to exist in the chronicles of human history

You were and will be on Your throne.

Remind us that the angels in Your heavenly courts will continually sing “Holy, Holy, Holy”

even as the world we know shifts, changes, and disappears.

In Your kindness, reorient us to our impermanence and Your eternality.

Bend our self-concerned knees before Your throne, and press the praise from our self-obcessed lips:

You are holy, we are not.

You are eternal, we are terribly temporary.

 

All our hope, all our trust, we place in You,

the only King to whom we pledge our entire allegiance: Jesus.

Amen.