I pray everyone has a fun and safe Independence Day weekend and Fourth of July celebration. Summer is quickly rolling by, so long weekends like this one are gifts to be embraced, as they slow us down just a bit and allow us to pause long enough to think about bigger things than our waiting inbox or daily to-do list. I hope you carve out some time that isn’t scheduled or planned, time that you can sit quietly and take some long, deep breaths. That is, practice Sabbath this weekend. Resist the urge to “do,” and make yourself rest. Ponder the mystery of God, and take time to pray unhurriedly to the God who keeps the earth spinning and the sun rising and the arc of salvation history bending toward fulfillment and goodness.

This Fourth of July weekend, I’m taking time to pray for our country, and I hope you will, too. Singing national songs and eating hotdogs and watching fireworks is fine, but as Christians we must not forget to pray. And I don’t know about you, but when I pray for our nation, I find that the language of my prayer oscillates between gratitude and lament. I thank God for the noble ideals upon which our nation was founded, and all the examples down through history of us living up to them; I thank God for freedom and peace, and the people who have sacrificed much (or even all) to maintain them; I thank God for the Bill of Rights, and the rule of law, and representative democracy, and national parks. There is so much to be thankful for in our country, and it is such a holy thing to pray our gratitude.

Yet prayer should be honest, and so we pray for those places in our society that are not what they are intended to be. Though our Declaration of Independence professes that all men are created equal, 241 years later the lived reality of our black and brown citizens reveals dangerous, lingering inequalities; though we are a nation founded on the talent and spirit of immigrants, too often we close ourselves off from those who desperately need to reach the safety and opportunity of our shores; though we have sacrificed much to ensure the freedom of all people, too often we turn to weapons to resolve complex diplomatic disputes. And so this weekend I’m going to take time to pray longingly for God to help us pass to future generations a more just and virtuous and peaceful nation than the one we inherited.

As individuals, it is possible to be grateful for who you are and what you’ve received, while also recognizing you are not yet the fullness of what you are intended to become. The same is true for societies and for nations. So this weekend, I hope you’ll lift up prayers of thanksgiving, hope, and intercession for our nation and for our world.

-Casey+

P.S. If you’re looking for prayer resources to help you with this, there are beautiful prayers “For National Life” and “For the Social Order” in The Book of Common Prayer, beginning on page 820.