Praying for America on her birthday

I love being prayed for on my birthday. About a decade ago, however, I realized that I never really prayed for America on her birthday. So I started a new personal tradition—every 4th of July morning, I spend some quality time praying for my nation.

Each year is different. Some years I pray about issues. Other years, I pray for specific government leaders. One year, I gathered a group of praying people at my home for breakfast and we interceded primarily for the church in America.

With so many different national concerns to bring before the Father, you may wonder where to begin. You have a unique and specific piece to this puzzle about which to pray, so a good place to start is to ask God! I’ve noticed that as I spend time thanking, praising, or worshiping Him, a direction typically bubbles up from my spirit, and I pray over that in whatever way I sense the Lord is leading me.

Let me tell you what happened on the morning of July 4th, 2009. I began praising God and seeking Him about His specific prayer direction for the nation. I expected to pray for the president or for one of the many issues our nation was facing at the time.

Instead, I couldn’t get the portion of Scripture I had read earlier in the morning out of my mind. It was Luke 2:41-51, about twelve-year old Jesus’ adventure in Jerusalem. Verse 43 haunted me. “…the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem. But His parents were unaware of it.” Panic began gripping my insides as evidently I was relating on a very deep level to what Mary and Joseph must have felt when it dawned on them that their Son had been missing for an entire day! (Things were a little different back then when communities traveled in a caravan. Back off of the lawsuits against Joseph and Mary, OK?)

I reread verses 44-46. “…[They] went a day’s journey; and they began looking for Him among their relatives and acquaintances. When they did not find Him, they returned to Jerusalem looking for Him. Then, after three days they found Him...” My attention was fixed upon the horror of having a missing child, not knowing whether he was dead or alive. Since I could not shake the sense of heaviness, I yielded to it and began praying for the children and teens of the nation.

In particular, that July 4th Saturday morning, I found myself praying for all children, ages 0-18, to be safe in their activities for the entire holiday weekend. I prayed against children getting separated from their parents and teens losing their friends in a crowd. I prayed in the name of Jesus against abduction attempts of all sorts—that they would be thwarted and for adults in charge of kids to be on high alert.

When I realized that I had prayed along this line most of the morning, I honestly felt a tad disappointed. I had wanted to pray for the nation, but I ran out of time and needed to leave for a holiday event. But on the inside of me, I sensed the correction of God. “You did pray for the nation.”

Monday evening, July 6th, I was in the kitchen listening to the teasers opening the local news from the TV in the other room. “Tonight we will take you to a local church where an alert volunteer stopped a child abduction Sunday morning.”

I dropped what I was doing and raced to the living room, waiting for the opening story. And this is what I learned.

A 10-year old girl was attending children’s church Sunday morning at the church I used to attend. A registered sex offender–a pedophile–had been skulking outside her class, unobserved. He motioned to her to step outside, and when she walked into the hall to see what he wanted, he put his arm around her and started walking her out of the building. However, an alert volunteer noticed what was going on just in time and abruptly demanded the offender to stop. The girl was led to safety by another volunteer and the pedophile was arrested.

I remembered my intense time of prayer two days before on the 4th, interceding to thwart child abductions. I realized that God’s desire is for each of us to yield to His leading, whatever that may be, and as we do, our prayers will hit the target. And as more and more of us make ourselves available to God to direct us in prayer on behalf of the nation, more and more bull’s-eyes will be hit, effectively producing the change we long for in America and around the world.

Have a happy and safe Fourth of July!

Dorothy