A Prayer for America after Charlottesville

Lord Jesus,

We need you right now. I know we always do, but I’m very aware of our desperate need at this moment in our country.

There’s so much hurt, Lord…so much hate. How we must be grieving Your heart. Yet I have to believe that You can bring good, even from this.

Use this violence, Lord Jesus, to help wake us up. To help motivate us to do something…to not be bystanders any longer.

Help us to realize this isn’t something that’s going to just go away. Help us not to be like Christians before World War II who closed their eyes and hoped Nazism would go away back then, or white Christians in mid-20^th century America who thought we just needed to be patient and moderate rather joining the peaceful fight for justice and equality. It’s so easy to judge them, Lord…and then to do the same thing, because it feels so different when you’re actually in the midst of it.

Help us to listen to each other, Lord. Help us not be defensive, but willing to take risks and be vulnerable and listen and step out of our comfort zone. Help us take the scary steps to understand those who are different from us, who have a different color of skin and a different cultural heritage and a different memory of America and her messy history, and at least try to see through each other’s eyes.

Help us be willing to sacrifice, and risk getting hurt, in order to take up our cross and follow Your way, Your narrow path, rather than the easy wide one.

I’m praying this for myself as much as anyone, Lord…for all my talk and writing about racial reconciliation, I really don’t know what to do right now. I am privileged…often I am complicit in the racism still pervasive in our society. But it presses heavy on my heart that You want me to do something.

So for now, I pray.

I lift up to You the black and brown and Native and other American communities of color in our land and ask for Your comfort, Your healing, Your hope. For grace for them to not give up. For real change and breakthrough to truly lift the burdens they have carried so long. They are tired, Lord. Give them grace to not give up on relationships with those of us white people who truly want to help and change, and to be patient with us. Remind them that You are for them, and if God is with us, who can stand against us?

I lift up to You the white American communities, and ask You to wake us up and show us what to do. Help us realize this does affect us, whether we want it to or not. Help us be willing to step out of our comfort zone, to be willing to risk and be hurt, for the sake of following You and for our brothers and sisters in Christ. Help us realize how weary our friends of color are, and to learn how to come alongside and support them, rather than expecting them to always educate us and tell us what to do.

I lift up to You those in immediate pain right now from the violence in Charlottesville, those injured and in the hospital, those mourning the loss of a loved one killed by a white supremacist car. Please let them know Your presence, Lord Jesus, and that You weep with them. Help them turn to You and find healing. Protect them from hopelessness and hate.

Thank You, Jesus, for who You are…the God who is at the side of the oppressed, who became one with the poor and marginalized and experienced injustice and violence Yourself, who weeps with those who grieve, who breaks down dividing walls and racial barriers by Your cross and Your blood. Thank You that nothing is impossible with You.

Please do a mighty work in our country, in Your people. Help us humble ourselves before You, listen and obey You, and let You in to do Your thing.

We love You, Jesus. In Your Name I pray…

Amen.

Feel free to add your own supplications to this prayer in the comments. Thanks, friends.