Lord, Heal Our Land

2 Chronicles 7:14:  If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land.

Here is the situation: God chose Solomon to build the temple in Jerusalem. When the work was finished, Solomon summoned all the elders and the whole assembly of Israel. The temple was filled with the glory of Yahweh. Solomon knelt down, spread his hands towards heaven and prayed his glorious prayer in 2 Chronicles 6:14-42. If we compared the two passages, we would see that the Lord affirms Solomon’s prayer by “borrowing” words from it. In chapter seven, when the Lord answers Solomon, he echoes various portions of his prayer:

Solomon’s prayer — If your people….Humble themselves(repent)….Before your face…Hear and forgive…Restore them to their land

Yahweh’s answer — If my people….humble themselves…pray (seek my face)…I will hear and forgive…I will heal their land (1)

Now we are not Israel and our situation is very different, but there are lessons here for us. One lesson is the power of prayer in our mission as the Church of Jesus Christ. God’s word records how central prayer was to the early church (Acts 1:14, 4:1-31, 13:1-3). The more we grow in praying for the needs of the world around us, the more we are awakened to the opportunity for the church to meet those needs.

Some of our prayers would be considered maintenance. These are the prayers we pray for our own needs. This is good and necessary. Praying for your family, your marriage or those who are ill in our Church is good. But there is another kind of praying we do, what is sometimes called Kingdom-Centered Prayer (2). In contrast to maintenance prayer, kingdom centered prayer is when you ask God to come down and do something in the world that brings Him glory. This is captured when Jesus teaches us to pray, “Thy kingdom come.”

Here are three elements to kingdom-centered prayer:

1. Repentance — You ask God to help you to repent and to show you the true colors of your own sin. Instead of confessing our sins in general, we confess our particular sins as Solomon does in his prayer. Remember Luther’s 1st thesis? All of life is repentance. 

2. It is outward focused — We pray for your country. We ask for the Lord to “heal our land.” All the needs of the COVID-19 warfare would go here. We pray for Pittsburgh and for all the various institutions. We pray that the Lord would give us eyes and ears to see and hear the needs of the people around us and grant opportunities to be his faithful witnesses. We can be so blind!

3. Finally, we pray for God’s presence — That is what it means to pray for God’s face to be upon us. We want His presence to be so great and so powerful that lives are changed. We see examples of this Kingdom Centered Prayer in Acts 4, Exodus 33 and Nehemiah 1. 

Here is a prayer for us to pray together:

Lord, in these days of fear and isolation bring your healing to our Land. Almighty God, send your Spirit and bring a great awakening to our country, to our city, to those who are lost and are perishing. Father, cause the gospel of grace to bring sinners to ask, “What must I do to be saved?”

And Lord, heal our land from the assault of the enemy we face. Protect our city and other cities, and vanquish this horrible enemy. Most of all, help me to hear the needs of those around me in the world and grant me, your servant, the power to help them. Cause me to think less of myself and my own comfort, and more of them.

1. Interestingly, Solomon also prays that when disease comes upon the nation, he asks that the Lord would hear the plea of the people and heal the land. 

2. Kingdom-centered prayer is a movement championed by Archie Parrish.