Need to pray for Trump

Now is a time to pray for President Trump and to remember our obligation as Christians to pray for all those who are in civil authority. The Apostle Paul charges us to offer prayers, intercessions and thanksgivings for “all people,” and includes in that list “kings and all who are in high positions” (1 Tim. 2:2).

This very act of praying is itself a counter-cultural act. After all, we live in a society in which politics has become a badge of tribal identity. Many see their political “side” as the force for good, and the other “side” as the total opposite.

We can pray in a way that wants absolute success for officials we like, and total defeat for those we oppose. That’s not the way Christians pray.

Consistently, no matter who is in office, we are to pray for success. That doesn’t mean we pray for all of any leader’s ideas to be realized. But it means that we pray that he or she would succeed, would carry out an agenda that leads to the flourishing of the rest of society and, particularly, so that the church may “lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way.”

We should pray that Trump’s presidency is a great and good one. That prayer applies to all, whether someone voted for the current president or not.

Those who like the new president should pray that he governs so successfully that their hopes are realized. Those who don’t like the new president should pray that, at the end of his term if not before, they are surprised that they were wrong.

This means we should pray for many things, specifically. We should pray for physical safety. Leading a nation is a perilous thing, as we have seen throughout our country’s history. We should pray also for wisdom and discernment.

A president – or any elected official – will have many expert advisers giving counsel, and many of these experts will see things differently. We should pray that Trump would at every turn have the foresight to differentiate between all the competing options in a way that benefits the country and the rest of the world.

We should also pray that the president is able to bring about peace. This means we pray that he would lead the world toward peaceful resolutions of conduct.

We also should pray that God uses him, through the bully pulpit of the presidency, to model what it means for an often-divided nation to live in peace and civility with one another, even when we disagree.

We pray for flourishing in the civil arena because that’s good for everyone, and part of our obligation to love our neighbors. We also do so because we pray for the freedom for the church to announce, without hindrance (Acts 28:30-31), a message that outlasts the White House.

This story was originally published January 21, 2017 at 5:02 AM with the headline "Need to pray for Trump."