National Day of Prayer - prayer for families

Lord, we humbly approach you, acknowledging who you are. You are the source of every good thing. You are the source of all our hope, our peace, our joy, our purpose. Lord, we confess that we fall short. I confess that I fall short. Despite our best intentions, we fall shorts as spouses; we fall short as parents. So we are certainly qualified to cry out for mercy. And we do cry out for mercy! Lord, it can be overwhelming to consider the challenges facing our families in America today. But we should not focus on the challenges. After all, you tell us that we cannot add a single hour to our span of life through anxiety. And that each day has enough trouble of its own. Instead, we should focus on following you with all our hearts, souls, minds and strength, as well as loving our neighbors as ourselves. Yet, Lord, we want to acknowledge the gravity of the situation. We want to heed the urgency of the prayer need. I think of Lamentations, where it says: Arise, cry aloud in the night watches. Pour out your heart like water before the presence of the Lord. Lift up your hands to him for the life of your little ones. Lord, we do that today. We lift up our hands for the lives of our children of all ages. We lift up our hands to you to save and strengthen our marriages. May we wives support and encourage our husbands, empowering them to lead us the way you want them to lead. May our husbands love us sacrificially—both their wives and children—with the love of Jesus, instilling in us trust and devotion. May our children learn to trust their parents so they can honor them and walk in the ways that will help them thrive spiritually and in their daily lives. And may all of us here set an example for others. We wholly depend on you. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.