Prayer in a time of near-depair

In church we often pray for our nation's leaders. We pray for wisdom. We pray for justice.

It always seems like weak tea to me. Perhaps that's a measure of the weakness of my faith, but so be it.

We have a leader who is so relentlessly unwise, so decidedly anti-wisdom, that it might be better to pray, Lord, give us wise leaders instead of the one we have now.

Give us less shooting-from-the-hip, less name-calling, less policymaking as political payback or pandering for votes.

Give us fewer scurrilous attacks in social media, fewer vicious accusations, fewer Twitter-taunts and less flooding the field with lies.

The President just tweeted, "When the looting starts, the shooting starts." He seemed to be calling for law enforcement to open fire on rioters in Minneapolis. 

How have we come to this point, Lord? How have we sunk so low?

I am afraid for my nation. I pray that the coming election will provide an opportunity for wisdom to prevail, because I have no hope for wisdom in our current leadership. My prayer does not arise from hopefulness, but from desperation. May your people, Lord, the followers in the Jesus way, follow hard now, in the midst of this crisis. May we follow hard and close, hearing His voice, so that in some measure we may say in awe, no matter who our leaders are or what they say and do, "Look! His Kingdom is coming, on earth as it is in heaven!"

In Jesus' strong name, Amen