By Doug Creamer

The recent diagnosis of President Trump and his wife Melania with COVID-19 has highlighted several things for me. Whether you agree or disagree with his policies, whether you are a Democrat or Republican, whether you like his personality or dislike it — all those things really aren’t important, he is the president. The Bible tells us plainly to pray for our leaders.

President and Melania Trump need our prayers. Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden and his wife Jill need our prayers. We should want all our government leaders and the candidates who are running for offices to be protected or healed from the COVID-19 virus and any other virus or flu. How you feel about a candidate should not affect your willingness to pray for their health and wellbeing.

I know it is election season and we want our candidate to win. We look forward to celebrating on election night that our candidates have defeated their challenger and will lead us into a bright future. No matter how badly you want your candidates to win, you shouldn’t want your opponents to have potentially life-threatening illnesses.

The Bible teaches us in many scriptures that we need to pray for our leaders. Look at Romans chapter 13 or I Timothy chapter 2, just to name a couple of passages. The Bible doesn’t say if you like your leader, pray for them. It just plainly says that we should pray for our leaders.

It goes without saying that we should pray good things for our leaders. I want all government leaders in any office to succeed so I can succeed. If they fail or are unsuccessful in their efforts to govern then that could have negative effects on my life.

One thing we can pray is that God will give our governmental leaders godly advisers. We can pray that the leaders will listen to these godly men and women as they make decisions. I can see in scripture where godless or ungodly leaders acted favorably towards believers; that is a good thing we can all pray. We can also ask God to allow his favor to rest on the land they are governing. Having godly advisors close to our leaders can bring great blessing for everyone.

Since we are in election season, I want to encourage you to pray and ask God to guide you in choosing the best candidates for the jobs. We want the best candidates from the president all the way down to the mayors. I believe God will guide us if we ask.

I want to encourage you to go and vote. So many people don’t vote in elections. I read that if all the people who didn’t vote in the last presidential election voted for a third-party candidate, they would have won easily. Encourage your neighbors and co-workers to go out and vote. Voting, especially in local elections, is very important. A few votes can determine which local officials are elected.

While we are talking about praying for our leaders, I would like to add another group of leaders to your prayer list. I want to encourage you to pray for your pastor. Pastors need our prayers. We want them to pray for us. I love it when my pastor prays for me. I imagine he likes when I pray for him, too. Pastors are on the front lines for our churches and they need our prayer support and encouragement.

While we are praying for pastors, let’s pray for all our church leaders. Sunday school teachers, youth leaders, elders, deacons, choir directors, and missionaries all need our prayers. It is not easy to keep a church moving in the right direction and every prayer makes a difference. I believe it pleases God when we are interceding for all our church leaders.

I want to encourage you to spend some time praying for all the different leaders in your life. In this election season, we need God’s wisdom to make good choices. In our churches, we need to pray for our pastors and all the leaders to guide us and make good decisions so we can make a difference in our communities for Christ. In our professional lives, we need godly men and women to make good decisions so our places of employment will grow and prosper and we can keep our jobs. When we pray we are having an impact and changing the world around us. So do your part and pray.

Contact Doug Creamer at PO Box 777, Faith, NC 28041 or doug@dougcreamer.com