Praying for the president
Photograph by Garon Piceli via Pexels
Rev. Dr. Paul Bailey
Praying for the president is harder than you think. Try it. Write out a prayer you could repeat daily for this president. Why? Because we are commanded to pray for the president and those in the government: “The first thing I want you to do is pray...especially for rulers and their governments to rule well so we can be quietly about our business of living simply, in humble contemplation. This is the way our Savior God wants us to live.” (1 Timothy 2:1-3 The Message)
In the past, I’ve written perfunctory prayers for my congregation to use on the first Thursday in May, the National Day of Prayer. I’ve prayed pastorally in worship for each new president. Like King Solomon who asked for wisdom and divine guidance, I would ask God to give those sensitivities to the current leader. The Apostle Paul told Timothy to pray for those in authority “…so that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and dignity” (1 Timothy 2:2). I would pray for that. In the past, I’ve always assumed that there was a president who might be open to such things. The pressures of the job seemed to demand it, but this president operates differently than his predecessors. I wasn’t prepared for the challenge of knowing what and how to pray for this president.
In 2018, James Harnish asked, “How do I pray for a president whose personal behavior and political agenda are a consistent contradiction of just about every biblical value I hold? How do I pray for an administration which seems intent on destroying things for which I have labored throughout my adult life and undermining the basic institutions of our democracy?”
How do you pray? The American people have a long tradition of praying for presidents. At George Washington’s inauguration, Samuel Provoost, the first Chaplain of the Senate, said a prayer for our first president. Inaugural prayers for the president became a tradition in 1937 when Franklin Roosevelt invited them. Dwight Eisenhower and George H. W. Bush wrote their own prayers and invited the nation to pray along with them. Gerald Ford sincerely asked for prayers: “I am acutely aware that you have not elected me as your president by your ballots, and so I ask you to confirm me as your president with your prayers. And I hope that such prayers will also be the first of many.” Prayers have been both welcomed and practiced.
Over the years, I’ve found some good ones. Rev. Donn Moomaw (Bel Air Presbyterian) prayed for Ronald Reagan with words like: “Forgive our pride and arrogance before each other and other nations of the world. May we with Godly grace weep with those who weep and rejoice with those who work for a just and free world… Grant us, oh, Father, the courage and the compassion to stand in solidarity with the poor, the needy, the dispossessed, and the disadvantaged.” But I can’t get that prayer to work because in this administration it seems that arrogance is admired and the needy are criminal cheats.
The American people have a long tradition of praying for presidents. Yet praying for the president is harder than you think.
A section from Franklin Graham’s prayer for George W. Bush was: “We pray that You’ll help them bring our country together so that we may rise above partisan politics and seek the larger vision of Your will for our nation. Use them to bring reconciliation between the races, healing to political wounds, that we may truly become one nation under God…” The problem with that prayer is that bringing the country together and reconciliation now appears to be for losers, not winners.
It’s hard to build prayer on those once treasured themes from the past. The first obstacle seems to be for me to believe that my prayers would even influence our current president. Yet I know the Apostle Paul’s instruction to Timothy was aimed at an emperor who wasn’t looking for guidance, either. So, I start with a prayer entrusting the president into God’s hands.
Second, I want to include some instructions to God as to what he should change about the president’s policies, but that approach with God has never usually been satisfying. Besides, I just sound like I am repeating the catastrophic predictions I heard in the media, social and otherwise. So, I pray, “Thy will be done.”
Third, I want to pray for those who surround and influence the President. I know he listens to agreeable friends, favorable public opinions, and adoring media. But what if the real influences are rooted in “…our struggle…not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.” (Ephesians 6:12 NIV). Now I pray: “In the name of Jesus, remove the principalities and powers at work in our land. I pray that cracks might form to let in some light and truth.”
Finally, the president is now 79 years old. On a personal, spiritual level, there have to be moments of introspection and soul-searching, reminding him of his own mortality. A severe case of COVID and an attempted assassination didn’t have any effect, though. I now pray that when he is alone, God will stand at the door knocking.
How do you close such a prayer? This is easier. I pray for me. “I know you did not make me for a life of worry or fear, of confusion or darkness. Teach me to overcome evil with good.” And then there is a benediction, reminding me of who is ultimately in control: “the one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in all” (Ephesians 4:6).
Praying for the president is a spiritual exercise. In the end, I always keep in mind the Holy Spirit’s promise “…If we don’t know how or what to pray, it doesn’t matter. He does our praying in and for us, making prayer out of our wordless sighs, our aching groans.” (Romans 8:26 The Message).
So, I can always say “Ugh!” Oh! Look. I just prayed again.
Rev. Dr. Paul Bailey retired in 2021 from the Eastwood Baptist Church in Syracuse, NY. In addition to over 40 years of pastoral ministry, he was an adjunct instructor in Communications at Onondaga Community College for 15 years.
The views expressed are those of the author and not necessarily those of American Baptist Home Mission Societies.
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