The Prayer I’m Praying for President Trump

To clasp the hands in prayer is the beginning of an uprising against the disorder of the world.”
+ Karl Barth

I’ll admit it, praying for President Trump is really hard. I’ve prayed through a litany of thoughts, frustrations, aggravations and anger towards him. I’ve prayed for his leadership and decision making. I’ve prayed for his heart, for his integrity, desperately hoping that he might somehow discover even a modicum of it. Yet, over and over and over I’ve found myself crestfallen and dispirited.

Why do I do it? Why do I pray for Trump (and Congress and all our leaders)? Well, Scripture urges us to pray for our leaders and those in authority. So, I try. Oh, I try. But it’s really hard and I’ve run out of words.

We’re told that “prayer changes us, and it’s true. I have certainly been changed through my prayers for our President. But I’m seriously out of words. I thought about taking to Facebook and asking others how they pray for the President, but that felt like a can of worms I didn’t really want to spend time digging through. So, I grabbed a couple of Blessings and Prayers from John O’Donohue’s book To Bless the Space Between Usand mashed them together, adapting them, and sprinkling in a couple of my own hopes, as a newly crafted prayer for President Trump. If I’m out of words, if I’m exhausted to even try, I might as well lean into and upon the words of someone else. 

So, here’s the prayer I’ve been praying and perhaps maybe you’d like to pray it as well. And perhaps, the clasping of hands in prayer will truly be the beginning to an uprising against the disorder of the world… or maybe our prayers will just keep changing us.

A Prayer for President Trump

May you have the grace and wisdom to act kindly,
learning to distinguish between what is personal and what is not.
May you be hospitable to criticism.
May you never put yourself at the center of things.
May you act not from arrogance but out of service.
May you work on yourself, building up and refining the ways of your mind, heart, and soul.

May those who work for you know you see and respect them.
When someone fails or disappoints you, may the graciousness with which you engage be a stairway to renewal and refinement.
May you treasure the gifts of the mind through reading and creative thinking.
May you know the wisdom of deep listening, the healing of wholesome words and encouragement, the decorum of held dignity.
May you speak with life words that build up rather than tear down and destroy, words that bring healing instead of pain, words that usher in peace and unity instead of discord and division.

May the gift of leadership awaken in you as a vocation of service towards others and for the good of others.
May you have good friends who mirror your blind spots, who offer you gentle rebuke and correction. May you hear their words in love, and may you have the wisdom to act accordingly.
May leadership be for you a true adventure of growth.

In your heart may there be a sanctuary for the stillness where the clarity of wisdom is born.
May integrity of soul set firmly in the path of love be your first ideal, the source that will guide your work.

So let it be. Amen.

(P.S. – This is a prayer that can be prayed over any leader or any one in authority, including pastors, and not specific of President Trump.)