-you are the maker of heaven and earth

-you are all wise, all powerful, always present

-you are trustworthy, patient, gracious, merciful, and loving

-even though we are small and temporary and weak and sinful, you care for us and teach us and treasure us.

-you are in control

-you set up kings and presidents, and you take them down

-you know what we need, and you have a good and loving plan for our families, our church, our brothers and sisters in Christ, our city, our state, our nation, and our world.

-even in suffering, sin, and injustice, you are good and your plan WILL prevail

-and we know this because you gave us yourself to rescue us from ourselves. If you gave us your own Son, we know you will give us all we need.

Confession

-we confess that we have not held your goodness, power, and salvation at the center of our hearts.

-we confess for those times when we have taken our eyes off you, and focusing on ourselves, our circumstances, and our political disagreements. We confess that we should have looked at all of those matters through the lense of your grace and goodness, your power and sufficiency.

-we confess For those times When we allowed ourselves to be bitter, angry, afraid, and stressed over things that we should have entrusted to you.

-we confess for those times when we looked down on or belittled or gossiped about people lovingly made in your own image, and even our brothers and sisters who you have redeemed at the cost of your own blood, and done so because of Sincere differences about masks or social distancing or political candidates or policies.

-we confess of those times when we failed to take seriously our duties as citizens to Find and support and elect leaders who will honor you and seek justice in our society.

-we confess of those times when we were flippant or ignorant about justice for the unborn or the marginalized, for the alien and the orphan and the widow, because we were comfortable and well fed.

-we confess that we have cared too much about things that don’t matter to you and cared too little about people who matter eternally.

Thanksgiving

-with this confession, we praise you. We praise you that you are ready and willing not only to forgive us, but to personally pay the price for our sin in your son.

-and we praise you that you not only pay for our sin, but you do so freely, warmly, lovingly, eagerly.

-we praise you that our debt is not only paid, but our bank account overflowing with YOUR riches, because you have adopted us into your family as sons and daughters.

-we praise you that you have made us one family in you, one body under one head at the foot of one cross.

-and so we also praise you that, despite our sin and selfishness and bitterness and short-sightedness, we have hope.

-we praise you that our hope is not in ourselves, or in the princes and presidents who you have allowed to govern us, but in your wisdom, grace, goodness, and plan.

-we praise you that you have not only blessed us with this eternal hope, but you have also poured our abundance on us here and now.

-you have given us a country where our sons and daughters can sleep safely at night and eat sufficiently during the day. A country where we can gather and worship and pray without fear.

-we know these temporal gifts have come at great cost, given through the lives and wealth and blood and tears of the men and women who sacrificed to flee persecution, find religious freedom, and establish a country built on the declaration that you are in control and that government exists to serve your purposes and people, not the other way around. So we praise you for giving us people like that.

-we recognize that our forefathers were weak and limited like us, and — like us — they both tolerated and even perpetrated terrible injustice. So we praise you for blessing both us and them beyond what we deserved or could have attained through our own wisdom or effort.

Supplication

-now, Father, we ask for your continued blessing.

-we come to you at a time of political and societal unrest, Sickness, confusion, anger, hatred, and injustice.

-in this situation, Lord, we ask that your will would be done and your kingdom would come, on earth as it is in heaven.

-we ask that you would give us what we need, from our daily bread to healing in our hospitals to unity and justice in our politics.

-we ask that you would forgive us our sins, and help us to forgive those who have sinned against us.

-we ask that you would end injustice in our city, state, and country, and that you would call up brave men and women to lead our communities and our governments.

-Father, please change our hearts as a people, to purify us from the selfishness and sickness that has typified our political and societal discussions and decisions.

-help us to see and serve and speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the unborn, the alien, the widow, and the orphan.

-Lord, please set our hearts for pilgrimage, that we would remember that this world is not our home, and that we should not waste the short moments we have here to seek beauty and justice, to create springs in the desert.

-lead us from temptation—whether the temptation that we can create heaven on earth, or the one that, since we can’t, we shouldn’t even try to make earth better.

-Lord, please help us with our election fallout. Please protect us from fraud and from lies, and from paranoia and false accusations.

-please give integrity and accountability to our elected officials and societal leaders, and that vote counts going on in places like GA, PA, MI, NV, and AZ would be conducted fairly and lawfully.

-Please be with Pres. Donald Trump, VP Pence, and their challengers, VP Biden and Sen. Harris. Please be with our national leaders in the House and Senate, like Mitch McConnell and Nancy Pelosi. Please be with our state and local leaders, with the poll workers and attorneys and gov’t officials entrusted with leading us through this election. Remove bad advisors from their midst, stiffen their spines to do justice, and put men and women around them who would advise them to seek the common good for all of us.

-Lord, please give us a fair and just outcome, and please give us the wisdom on how to make things more fair and more just.

-make us wise as serpents and innocent as doves. Help us to choose to believe good about the motives of others when we can; help us to resist the temptation to believe the worst out of hand.

-Father, please deliver us from evil. Please protect us from violence. Please protect us from destruction of businesses and homes. Please protect our social and political institutions from permanent damage, and please rebuild them to do your will.

-Please work through us, your church, to do your will. Please help us to spread the good news of Jesus honestly, boldly, and without compromise. Give us wisdom and courage to follow you well and faithfully, no matter where you lead and no matter what it costs.

-finally, Father, please continue your saving work to make all things new. Creation groans for your redemption. Our nation groans for your intervention. Please save us.