Dear God, I learned yesterday that our nation took extensive military action on another nation, killing it’s top leader and several beneath him. Was it a good thing? Was it a bad thing? The right thing to do? The wrong thing to do? I’d love to say that I know, but how could I possibly know? There are things that people know about this situation that I don’t know. And then there are things that you know in the spiritual realm that they don’t know. I’m just a little guy in a small town in the United States with incomplete information. So my response was to ask my wife to go to our church’s chapel and pray for…well, everyone. It was a prayer of ignorance, just asking for you to move in this historical moment. To move in your mysterious way. Does that prayer change you and your actions? Does my little prayer make a cosmic difference? I don’t know, but it felt important to do it, not only for your glory and plan, but for my understanding of my place in all of this and learning to trust you.

As I thought about our trip to the chapel, I thought about these prayers I’m doing to you about prayer. This is certainly an area of prayer–praying in ignorance. I don’t understand a given situation in my life. I don’t know why this family member, friend, or community member is acting the way they are, but I know they need prayer. I know they need to be part of your kingdom. I know they need your peace that only comes through walking through the narrow gate. I know they need your daily bread and forgiveness.

Father, when it comes right down to it, every prayer I pray is laced with ignorance because I have no idea what you’re doing or what is going on around me. I don’t know what you’re doing in my life, my wife’s life, my children’s lives, my friends’ lives, etc. at any given moment, much less the activities in the entire world. That’s why I submit myself to your kingdom and your will. Your kingdom come. Your will be done. My will is foolish and ignorant. I will likely almost always ask for the wrong thing. So I offer you the prayer today that I offered you last night. Be in every situation. Help the leaders to receive your counsel through voices they can hear around them. But regardless of how this all turns out or how it even impacts my life or my personal safety, my hope is not in anything that is happening here. My hope is only in you.

I pray this in Jesus and with your Holy Spirit,

Amen