Archive for November 19, 2013


Nov 19

A Prayer for the Philippines and for the Unborn

2013 | by Trent Hunter | Category: Prayer

The following is a prayer adapted from the pastoral prayer from Sunday, November 17, 2013. 

Great Father of glory, we rejoice as we ponder your salvation.

Salvation is yours and you are on your throne. And one day we will know this salvation in its fullness in the new creation: a place without sin; a place without competing and false gods; a place without the proud human opposition to your throne, which though futile is everywhere around us, and in us; a place without sin, sadness, and death.

While we wait, we pray now for those caught in a fallen world.

We want to pray for those who have been devastated by the winds and waves in the Philippines. Rows of bodies are even now being collected and staged for burial in mass trenches. The body count is devastating. The heartbreak of parents and of children is unlike anything most of us here have known. This Typhoon was not beyond your jurisdiction. It was a part of the world you cursed because of Adam’s sin. It is a reminder that the entire world is under judgment, even if this tragedy is not a specific judgment for the specific sins of a specific people. Father, as your Word says, the creation groans. We have heard it grown this week. We pray that these dark days would lead to great light and hope for the people of the Philippines. May your work through your people with your Word bear great fruit. We pray for help, and comfort, and safety for those sleeping under the stars even now, perhaps especially for women and for children without the protection of the husbands and fathers they have lost. And most of all we pray that this shake up of everything familiar to these precious people would mean a shake up of their lives at levels deeper than they could imagine. We may not be able to track it and trace it, but perhaps you would be pleased to grant salvation to many through the doors that this tragedy will open for the gospel.

And Father, we pray for the unborn sons and daughters in the wombs of mothers in our city. Specifically, in light of the ordinance brought before our city this week, we pray for the restraining grace of human government to be more closely aligned with the reality of human life in the womb, and the reality that all human life is valuable as such, and not just certain kinds of human life. We are a people in history uniquely privileged and accountable with our hand on the wheel here, not only governed but governing through our political process. And so we pray for the day when we will look back on these years as a nation with great contrition and embarrassment at what our laws taught, approved, and even promoted, and with great joy at how you have answered our prayers.

We pray for the witness of the church and for many conversations to take place this week. We pray for conversations this week with those who are considering an abortion, that our words and our lives would clearly and beautifully demonstrate the preciousness of human life. We pray for conversations this week with men and women who have committed abortions, that we may offer the hope of the gospel to them, which forgives all of our sins. We pray for conversations with this week with those who approve of abortion, that their minds and that their hearts may be changed.

Father, we remember that the New Testament Scriptures were written in the midst of the great darkness that is this world, in the midst of persecution, and in a world filled with great evil. And yet they were written with resilient hope and a certain confidence in your wise purposes centered in Jesus Christ. We thank you for bringing us into this hope. We thank you for opening our eyes and calling us into the light. We pray that you would do that for many in our city through the preaching of the gospel this week.

Gracious Father, we need your Word. We are dead without it.

In Jesus’ name we pray these things,

Amen.