DAYSTAR UNIVERSITY: Nairobi Campus PRAYER DAY, SEPTEMBER, 3RD, 2009.

Prayers for the Nation and the Environment -Brothers and Sisters-Am happy to be with you here today, to seek the counsel and blessings of God with you.Many students that I have been able to interact with and even alumni have asked that we keep this tradition going, a transition they say sustained and still sustains this institution .I have a duty today to guide us in praying for the nations of the world, as indeed the environment that sustains the life in these nations. Let us pray for the Nations:Everlasting God, we thank you for the gift of the nations.We thank you for the gift of the government, citizens, leaders, civil society and other aspects of a nation state.We thank you for the prevalence of the gospel in both open and closed societies, and the remarkable expansion of your work in the hearts and lives of individuals and communities around the world. We thank you for the example of faith given to us by your valiant sons and daughters in days gone by, giving up glittering careers and ambitions to toil for you in unknown, harsh and unpredictable lands.We thank you for your faithfulness, our own faithlessness and unfaithfulness notwithstanding.Lord, we are moved to penitence by our own failure as citizens in these nations, our failure to make the most of opportunities and resources to glorify you, opportunities and resources which the cloud of witness lacked in its early days.Lord, we are moved to penitence by our failure to exert a positive, redeeming influence on people, ideas and structures in our societies and nations.Lord, we are moved to penitence by our failure to look out for the interests of the least of your brethren: the sick, the orphans, the strangers, the widows, the hungry, the poor, the thirsty, the naked, the imprisoned, and the persecuted.As your servant Dr. Martin Luther King, Jnr once preached, ‘‘A time is coming, when we’ll talk in terms of things we have done, and things we have not done, and it seems I can hear the God of history saying, that was not enough.’’Almighty God let us never look back in retrospect at that time, and wish that we had done more.Almighty God, blaze in our hearts anew, and put our hearts on fire for you, to contend for you, your truth and purposes in our nations, consequences not withstanding.Almighty God, allow us to say with Christ that: ‘‘The Spirit of the Lord is on me because He has anointed me to preach good news to the poor, He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor’’.Almighty God, may we live this prayer, causing your glory to fill the nations, and the earth.Almighty God, may we make our lives a daily, responsible answer to the question of your call on our lives in our generation.Almighty God, cause us to be aware that we are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses, and help us to throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.Almighty God, let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfector of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.Let us Pray for the Environment:Everlasting Father, we are painfully reminded today, of our failure to be good stewards of what you have given us to exploit for life.We today witness a planet in peril, both here and in other nations. God of nature and nature’s God, forgive our greed.God of nature and nature’s God, forgive our short-sightedness. At individual levels, cause a greater awareness of the challenges, trends and opportunities as regards environmental degradation.At national levels Lord, cause a greater awareness of the link between environmental well-being and broader stability, and cause for there to be genuine public sensibility.Also almighty God, cause for there to be better policy formation, implementation and analysis.We ask all these, with thanksgiving in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit Amen.
- The writer, Ezekiel Chebunde, chairs the Daystar University Environmental Club.