Dear Great King,
We proclaim that you are our King. We are your subjects. We exist in your kingdom. You make the rules. You lead the way. You are sovereign. You are the monarch we love. We seek to be your loyal subjects. We crown you king. We sing your praise. All royalty, all power, all rule belong to you. We bow when you rise. We stop when you move. We obey your word. We respect your scepter. Your rod and staff guide us.
We are children in your kingdom. We must be brought to you. We cannot seek or find you on our own. Accept us. Welcome us. Save us. Purify us. Redeem us. Keep us. Protect us. Give us home.
Today we bring before your throne the children among us. We know these children. We see their pain. We gasp at their bruises. We know their backgrounds. Life has been mean to them.
As we bring these children into your royal quarters, we know that there are others seeking to keep them away. We ask you to intercede and to oppose those who oppose children.
- Help busy parents not to neglect bringing their children to you
- Take away the temptation of materialism that makes children low priority
- Stop abusive parents and adults
- Remove the budget shortages that keep children away
- Simplify the government bureaucracy that swallows children
- Destroy the drugs and drug dealers that destroy our children
- Break the alcohol peddlers who give and sell to our children
- Counter the promiscuous people who tempt our children or abuse our children with sex
- Remove the cloud of hopelessness above so many children
- Make our leaders see the problems that poor schools create for our children
- Remove the intolerance and ignorance and apathy that keeps so many children from real help and hope
- Keep marriages together and destroy infidelity that ruins the homes of so many young
- Cure the childhood diseases that afflict our children
- Help the people who have food and money to share it with poor and hungry children
- Keep children safe from crime
- Defeat the godlessness in our land that keeps children from knowing you
- Take away our selfishness that keeps children at arm’s length
You are King, Oh God, we implore you not to let people keep children away from the way the truth and the life.
Some children fare better than others, O King. We pray for those children who do not know you or Jesus. We ask you to pay special attention to these children:
- Children without mothers and fathers
- Forgotten children
- Refugee children
- Homeless children
- Children in detention
- Children in trouble
- Children with anxiety
- Children with attachment disorders
- Depressed children
- Distracted children
- Disabled and handicapped children
- Unwanted children
So many fences exist between you and these children. Please tear down those walls. Defeat the forces that keep children from coming to you in our day and in our city and in our place.
We pray for those people that children encounter on a regular basis. We ask you to change their hearts and make them conduits for children, to provide safe passage for children. We pray that you would work in these people to prompt them to bring children to Jesus:
- Elders
- Deacons
- Preachers
- Politicians
- Parents
- Teachers
- Bible school teachers
- Coaches
- Social workers
- Scouting leaders
- Nannies and caretakers
- The wealthy
- The poor
- Judges and lawyers
- Host of others
Help us to help children know you. Help us to be more like children, not in their desperation and pain, but in their vulnerability and humility. We know that your kingdom belongs to those who have a heart like children.
We appeal to you O Almighty King to pour out your blessings on our world’s children. We are each thinking of a child that desperately needs to know that they are valuable, significant, and important to you and to the world. Give these children the warmth of your loving hand, the sense of your welcoming smile, the grace of your wonderful kingdom. May the children of our world know your blessing.
Oh, King, you rule the world. You have unlimited resources. You have unlimited power. We beg you to use those resources and powers through us for the children we know.
We come to you in the name of your son, Jesus. We thank you oh King of Kings and Lord of Lords for listening to our pleas.
Amen.