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I urge, then, first of all, that petitions, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for all people\u2014for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness. This is good, and pleases God our Savior, who wants all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth. (1 Timothy 2:1-4)

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We\u2019ve been talking in these devotions about prayers of intercession and we\u2019ve been hearing election news dribbling out of the States at the same time.\xa0 It\u2019s an excellent opportunity to step into Paul\u2019s invitation to Timothy and the church he served to offer prayers of various types for all those in authority then, in Canada, in the US, and abroad.\xa0

I\u2019m writing this devotion mid-day on Wednesday, so perhaps by the time you read or hear it, more clarity will have come as to who the next President and Congress of the United States will be.\xa0 But in the time I\u2019m living in, here on Wednesday afternoon, no such clarity has yet emerged.\xa0

It\u2019s no secret that top of mind in Canada and in the US, security has been a concern given the uncertainty of this particular election cycle.\xa0 Canada has been quietly making contingency plans for any outcome.\xa0 And in the US, militias have been arming, businesses have been boarding up, and the candidates have been lawyering up.\xa0 We may, or may not, be in for some choppy waters ahead.

So it\u2019s a good time to be interceding as God\u2019s people for those in authority.\xa0 For leaders at local, state, and federal levels in the US, and in countries the world around, to have patience, grace, and sobriety in their judgements and in their statements at this time.\xa0 For American judges and justices to have wisdom in the thorny questions of weighty importance that will be laid out before them in the hours and days to come.\xa0 For the candidates themselves in all the races up and down the ballot to have patience and humility to journey wisely and morally in these waters ripe for the creation of strife.\xa0

These are indeed the sorts of prayers that have an urgency and an obvious importance to them at this point in time, but these are the prayers we are invited to be praying at all times as God\u2019s people.\xa0

The reason, Paul says, is that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness.\xa0 The administration of true justice that can create a true peace in any given land is indeed one of the works entrusted to government.\xa0 All governments.\xa0 And it is within that just peace that we are able to worship God freely, to live morally, and to spread the Gospel more freely as well.\xa0

Government\u2019s administration of just peace, and our prayers for it, are good and pleasing to God our Saviour who has concern not only for us, His Church, but for all people.\xa0 Those who govern and those who are governed.\xa0 Paul seems to imply that within a peaceful land\u2014prayerfully lifted up to God and governed justly\u2014the Gospel finds fruitful soil to spread its seeds of salvation and a knowledge of the truth through God\u2019s people.

In these times of more tumultuous stability and fractious peace, we have found the truth in question, and as the institutional expressions of church have gotten dragged into the fray by choosing sides, the Gospel has also been hindered, hitched to some of the baggage of political opinions of the moment that it was perhaps not intended to carry.\xa0 The baggage we are intended to carry as church, is the burden of prayer for those in authority.

To be clear, in a democracy, we also play our own civic role when election time comes, and as individual Christians, we do pick sides and candidates to fulfill that civic role.\xa0 But when we come together corporately as The Church, our role changes from that of picking sides, to that of prayerfully attending to the business of the Kingdom of God where our other, truer citizenship lies.\xa0 And that business is to pray for all those in authority, here and abroad, that there might be peace where all people might flourish, where God might be worshiped freely and openly, where there might be justice and morality, and where all people might catch a true and saving glimpse of God\u2019s Kingdom come.\xa0

As Canadians with no vote in the current contest, but who feel the weight of the outcome none-the-less, this is an excellent time to practice our God-given ministry of intercession for those in authority.\xa0 May there be peace.

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