Guest Post by Pro-life Leader Frank Pavone, National Director, Priests for Life
They came from across the nation the other night – young and old, veteran activists and large pro-life families – in response to a Macedonian Call from Florida pro-life groups to help us defeat the deceptive and destructive abortion Amendment 4.
I spoke to the group in a Baptist Church in Orlando. They were on their knees in fervent prayer – children along with their parents and grandparents.
Then, with military precision, they made plans at the end of the evening as to how they would deploy the next morning for door-knocking, lit dropping, and sign waving.
The event was coordinated by the national group Operation Save America.
This combination of prayer and action has shaped the lives of so many of our fellow citizens as we come to the culmination of an election that more and more people describe as an outright battle between good and evil, abortion being one of many manifestations of the unapologetic extremism of the Left and its Democrat Party.
And this should shape our prayer.
The prayer campaign and devotional guide that I’ve been providing to Americans takes a very comprehensive and specific approach to praying for the elections. God wants us to be intentional and specific in our prayers, and elections certainly provide us a lot of raw material for begging God’s help.
We pray, of course, for candidates and their races at every level of government – from President, to Congress, to state offices, and down to mayors, sheriffs, and school boards.
Our prayers should embrace the candidates’ families, their campaign teams, and their consultants and advisors. Sometimes consultants give less than wise advice, and prayers are certainly warranted in that context.
But our prayers for elections are more than for the specific candidate races. They are also for what I already mentioned – the ballot initiatives.
Ten states are facing the possibility of having their Constitutions, in a completely unprecedented development from the vantage point of federal and state constitutional history, express a fundamental right to abortion. We have to pray for this not to happen, and the states to which to target those prayers are AZ, CO, FL, MD, MO, MT, NE, NV, NY and SD.
Aside from the abortion issue, many other ballot measures, both statewide and local, will be considered by voters. How many understand the implications of these ballot measures before they vote? We need to pray that citizens not only cast their ballot, but study their ballot. Issues regarding marijuana use, redistricting, term limits, and election reform – among many others — are on the ballot.
And when it comes to election reform, many statewide and local races will impact election integrity for years to come. Very specific prayer is warranted here.
Election prayer also needs to be directed to the virtues we need in elections. Some mistakenly think the key virtue we need is “civility.”
Rather, I believe it’s honesty. Public servants need to be servants of the truth. They need to say what they really believe, represent the issues fairly, and then carry out what they promise.
That is no small thing to pray for. Election prayer is meant to deliver the graces these men and women need to embrace and stay faithful to virtue.
Prayer, moreover, should be directed against the apathy that keeps far too many voters at home during elections.
Prayer to the God who is the source of all good activity is often precisely the missing element in getting someone off the couch and into the voting booth.
When we pray to God to save our nation and protect our freedom, his response is likely to be to reach down from heaven, grab us by the back of the neck, and thrust us into the battle. Too many believers who rightly say the nation and its future are in God’s hands forget that God has put the nation in our hands. Believers wait on God, but too many forget that God is also waiting on us.
Let’s pray that voters see elections as an act of love of God and neighbor – of God, because we obey his command to give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar, including our vote – and love of neighbor, because the president we choose is not just our president but our neighbor’s president – and so forth for every public official. To love our neighbor includes choosing the best leaders for them.
No matter how much we have prayed so far, these are the days to intensify and specify those prayers. If we are believers, we are convinced that prayer actually changes things. If every vote counts, then every prayer counts even more.
May we see God’s faithfulness in the outcome.
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Enjoy a Prayer Guide to the 2024 Election, with a different prayer each day.
