a Prayer for Law Enforcement Officers
In the summer of 2015, as an intern at Newnan Presbyterian Church, I was invited to participate in a community prayer service held in the aftermath of the Mother Emmanuel AME massacre in Charleston, less than a year after the deaths of Eric Garner and Mike Brown, days after the death of Sandra Brown, and while a KKK rally was being planned for Stone Mountain (just a short distance away).
I was assigned to specifically pray for our country's law enforcement officers. Little has changed in the years since, and the prayer is still relevant.
He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God? Micah 6:8
Everlasting God,
You alone created justice. And you call us to walk in it.
We pray for those who have sworn to uphold the laws of this country, knowing that your law supersedes our law, and your call to justice does not stop with adherence to the expectations of our culture.
We ask for your wisdom when the laws they seek to enforce don’t seem to follow your call to love our neighbor as our self, because we know the call to do justice is accompanied by the call to love kindness.
We pray for those whose job is called “peace-keeping,” even when we know that their presence often means that earthly peace has long since been shattered.
We know that those who are truly peacemakers are blessed to be called your children, and we pray that there is no confusion between those who seek to keep peace according to the culture’s standards and those who seek to make peace in your Holy Name. Protect our law enforcers from this confusion.
God of Justice, each day they adorn themselves with weapons, hoping not to use them. Protect them, O Lord.
Protect them from violence.
Protect them mentally, emotionally, and spiritually from the effects of facing danger on a daily basis. May they return each day and night to their loved ones with a clear conscience and clean spirit.
Protect them from enacting violence on others.
May they not find themselves in a place where they feel they have no other option than to still or silence another one of your beloved children – for we are all your beloved children. May they not find themselves in a place where they feel this is their only recourse. May they have your peace, your wisdom, and the courage to try one more tactic before resorting to that last resort which results in another’s last breath.
Jesus, You have taught us these words: “Greater love has no man than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”
Jesus, I am grateful that there are men and women who have sworn to uphold laws even if it means that they must lay down their own lives, demonstrating that great love.
And we join our hearts and pray that those same women and men would be given your eyes to see and ears to hear that every citizen is their friend.
Infuse our communities with a spirit of unity, so that there will be open communication, deeper understanding, and respect between those who seek to serve and protect and all who they are called to serve and protect.
Protect our law-enforcers from needing to believe that their decisions could be above reproach, that their understanding of the law could be flawless, that their perception of any individual could be without bias.
Rather, God, give them your heart of service, your hands of mercy and your feet of grace. May their eyes see as you see.
Thank you for their service. Keep them safe – physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually – so that they can walk the streets they seek to protect with a clear conscience and clean spirit, seeking only to follow your example, to do only what you have told us is good: to do justice, but only if that doing of justice is accompanied by loving kindness and walking humbly.
In your holy and righteous name we pray. Amen.
