A Prayer for Today

First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for everyone, for kings and all who are in high positions, so that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and dignity. – 1 Timothy 2:1 (NRSV)

One of the challenges of a Daily Devotional is that it needs to be written several weeks before it’s published. Given the current state of the world, who knows what will have happened between the time since I wrote this and today when you read it?

Yet one of the blessings is that the biblical texts are often timeless. Today’s passage from the First Letter to Timothy is a good example. Regardless of the events of the nation or the world when you read this, I suspect we’ll still need to heed the letter’s call to pray for everyone, especially for national leaders “and all who are in high positions.” We’ll still need to hope for quiet and peaceable lives—for ourselves and for the rest of the human family.

As importantly, we’ll still need to hold ourselves and our leaders accountable that our lives be lived in “all godliness and dignity.” Or as J. B. Phillips translated the passage, “with a proper sense of God and of our responsibility to God for what we do with our lives.”

Wherever or whenever you read this devotional, may this ancient letter give new vision and life to our prayers this day.

Prayer
Thank you, God, for your timeless word. Help us and our leaders to have a deeper and broader sense of who you are and what you want us to do and be. Amen.

About the Author
Talitha Arnold is Senior Minister of the United Church of Santa Fe (UCC), Santa Fe, New Mexico. She is the author of Mark Part 1 and Mark Part 2 of the Listen Up! Bible Study series and Worship for Vital Congregations.