Dear Heavenly Father,
Thank you for allowing and encouraging us to speak to you and to listen for your guidance. Thank you for your constancy and faithfulness through many, many generations, from before Abraham until today. Thank you for being close to your people when they struggle. Please allow us now to focus on you and to become aware of your nearness.
Lord, the world seems to be in turmoil and we ask for your strength, wisdom and provision for those who are trying to unravel the problems. We pray for the people who are hungry and afraid because their homes and livelihoods have been damaged by war, floods, crop failure, fire, drought or disease. We pray for those who have been trafficked and who are unable to escape. The Bible is full of instructions and commands to protect the vulnerable and to relieve the oppressed. We pray for your mighty power for all those organisations and individuals who are trying to promote justice in your name.
We pray too for those who are in positions of responsibility, especially those at the COP 26 summit. Lord, we ask that this conference would convince the world’s leaders that action must be taken urgently. We ask that innovative and imaginative commitments would be made by all the nations to stop the planet from tipping into destruction. We pray for sustainable development, a swift end to the use of fossil fuels, and a determination to enable all nations and people to live securely and peacefully with mutual respect and with dignity.
Lord, we pray for our own nation. We pray for healing of the divisions of recent years. We pray for an end to the covid pandemic and a genuinely more just and humane society as we build back. We pray for compassion, understanding, trust and respect between individuals, regardless of race, faith, sex, ability, disability, social status, post code, or political preference. And we pray for leaders, especially in parliament, who are wise, honest, and genuinely more interested in the whole community than in themselves.
Finally, we pray for our own community here at Rowheath and our own loved ones near and far. We ask for your peace. As we build homes and plant gardens and settle into this place to which you’ve brought us, please pour your peace and your hope and your joy into our lives and enable us to share those treasures with the people around us.
We ask all these things, as always, in Jesus’ name.
Amen.