A Prayer for Elections
Election day is tomorrow. News can keep us informed, opinion pieces can persuade us, and our beliefs can ground our convictions. All of these things can add to our stress and anxiety as well. What if our candidate doesn’t win? What if our candidate does win? What if this or that initiative passes (or not)? Sometimes it feels like our whole world revolves around the outcomes of these elections.
Prayer can be a help to us as we enter the dark and dangerous time of Election Day and vote-counting. Prayer can shift our perspective and open our hearts to love rather than fear. Through prayer, we can learn to trust God no matter the outcome.
Prayer can also be used in harmful ways. Prayer can convince us of our own rightness, insulating us from the perspectives and experiences of others. Prayer can be weaponized to solidify our harmful beliefs about other people. Prayer can be used to obscure oppression and violence behind “holy” words.
The following prayer is an attempt to recognize that elections are not only about the public officials and policies on the ballot, but also about the values and postures we foster in our hearts.
I originally arranged this prayer in 2020 for a small group of ministry staff. I post it here in hopes you will find benefit in it. Some is taken from the Book of Common Prayer. If other sources influenced my writing, I can’t recall them now. If you read this in a group, the normal text portions are for a leader to read, the bold text portions are for the group to read together.
A Prayer for Elections
O God, our Creator and Redeemer, we acknowledge our need for you.
Conflict and strife, hatred and suspicion, anger and fear, are growing
in our country and perhaps within ourselves.
Fill us, Lord, with your peace that passes all understanding.
Almighty God, to whom we must account for all our powers and privileges:
Guide the people of this nation
in the election of officials, representatives, and legislation;
that, by faithful administration and wise laws,
the rights of all may be protected,
and that equity and justice may allow
for the flourishing and well-being of all who live in this land.
Grant us, Lord, your wisdom.
May we trust that your faithfulness is not dependent on the outcome of this election,
that “your will being done on earth as it is in heaven”
is accomplished in every nation and land
beyond human borders, boundaries, and systems of power.
Show us, Lord, your providence.
May the results of this election not insulate us
against our responsibility to love our neighbor,
to love our enemy,
and to work for justice in our communities and our nation.
Keep us attentive, Lord, keep us in your love.
May your Spirit work powerfully in our enemies and in us
so that the barriers that divide us may crumble,
suspicions disappear, and hatreds cease.
Lead them and us from prejudice to truth;
deliver them and us from hatred, cruelty, and revenge;
and in your good time enable us to stand reconciled before you.
Heal us, Lord, by your grace.
May we remember that your power, your will, and your kin-dom
are not equivalent to human systems of power,
that your ways are not our ways,
and that justice and peace will not come through human means alone.
Guide us, Lord, in your righteousness.
May the event and aftermath of this election not distract us from the injustice that continues daily regardless of elections and legislation...
[free prayers of concern may be offered,
each ending with “Lord in your mercy, hear our prayer.”]
For these and others who suffer, whom you see and care for—Lord, in your mercy, hear our prayer.
Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.
Thy kin-dom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us today our daily bread, and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.
Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
For thine is the kin-dom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.