Father,
Thank you for your unending steadfast love. Thank you that your mercies never come to an end; please enable us to see them daily and be grateful for them, especially in times of trial, frustration and weariness. Thank you for your great faithfulness. Please be our soul’s portion and enable us to rest in your sufficiency. You are what we need most; please help us to desire you above all.
We recognize that the trajectory of the world is ultimately in your hands, not ours. Yet we also know that you work through people and through means. So please enable us to love and relate to those in our community and to faithfully steward what and whom you’ve given us.
Please equip your people across the globe to be salt and light in their unique communities. May we be a living testament to your character and the beauty of your gospel. Please help us to meet needs in our communities.
Please help us as we attempt to cast our fears and anxieties on you. Thank you that the Spirit intercedes on our behalf when words fail.
Please give wisdom and prudence to our government leaders. We recognize that this is a time of significant strain and turmoil. Please enable them to serve and lead faithfully.
Please protect us from arrogance and vilifying our neighbors. Please enable us to listen to others and respectfully relate to them.
Please help and provide for those who have lost jobs, incomes or businesses. Please enable us to have the dignity of participating in this.
Please heal those who are sick. But for families who have lost members, please provide a special comfort. We recognize that being unable to gather in-person to honor a loved one’s life as a community is a unique and heavy burden.
Please protect our healthcare workers and their families.
Please help our teachers who teach remotely. Please help our children to learn in a new environment. Please enable parents to navigate the newness and tensions that come from the disruption to education rhythms.
Please enable shepherds of your Church to shepherd it faithfully during this time. Please continue to propel your people to be the Church, even in the absence of face-to-face gatherings. Please give a special grace and help to our brothers and sisters around the globe for whom it is illegal to gather in your name. Please sustain them.
Please comfort and reveal yourself to those who are anxious.
Please provide for and protect those who are in danger in their own homes.
Please propel your people to use this time well, rather than simply passing the time in idleness.
Please enable us to reach out to the lonely and relate to them with whatever means are available.
Please use this time to strengthen bonds within families.
Please strengthen the bonds between husbands and wives during this time.
Please propel and enable parents to love their children well through these times.
Please give grace, mercy, help and stamina to moms whose already heavy loads have been increased in this time of trouble and isolation.
Please cause men to fight tenaciously for sexual purity of thought and action. Please propel them to shepherd their families well.
Please enable us to trust in your character and your inscrutable ways.
Thank you that we have some hindsight regarding how you’ve worked through pain and crisis throughout history. Please enable us to consider these many examples in your Word, and to take heart in them.
Thank you that we have access to your Word, and that we can go to it time and again and receive grace through it.
Thank you that we can approach you in prayer.
Thank you for the gospel and the anchor that it is for our souls.
Thank you for the hope of all things being made new one day. Until then: you are able to keep us from stumbling and to present us blameless before the presence of your glory with great joy. To you, the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen.