World in Prayer

Sharing in God’s loving compassion for all

Prayers for Pakistan

Prayers here have followed Pakistan through monsoon flooding and shortages of clean water, conflict along the Afghan border and the Kashmir frontier, and the persecution of religious minorities. Elections held under tension are named as well, alongside thanks for those who work for education, relief and peace.

Wake the Sleepers: Prayers for Canada’s Unmarked Graves, Tigray, and a Building Collapse (June 24, 2021)

Guide us waking, O Lord, and guard us sleeping; that awake we may watch with Christ, and asleep we may rest in peace. –Concluding Prayer for Compline, from The Book of Common Prayer “When evening had come, Jesus said to his disciples, ‘Let us go across to the other side.’ And leaving the crowd behind, […]

Though I May Speak: Prayers for a Walled World, Famine, and the Storming of the US Capitol (January 7, 2021)

Editor’s note:  World In Prayer needs a few more writers and editors!  Our team consists of 12-15 volunteers, from several different countries and continents. Each week, one person writes the prayers in response to international news. A second person then edits and posts the prayers online.  Because we rotate who writes and edits, you would end up serving […]

God of Peace, Make Us Whole: Advent Prayers for Tigray, Workers, and World AIDS Day (December 3, 2020)

In this second week of Advent, we light the candle of peace. What does it mean for us to seek God’s peace? Is peace a lack of conflict, or is it more? The word so often used for peace in the Bible can also be translated as wholeness. May we seek God’s wholeness this week. […]

Lord Have Mercy: A Prayer for Dijon Kizzee, Health Care Cut Short, and Words That Wound (September 3, 2020)

We pray Lord, We pray some of us on our knees, some hands folded, palms to heart, forehead to ground, some raising a sign in protest, some gritting their teeth and eyes tight shut and others lighting a candle.  We pray for your mercy in these tumultuous times, in these times where every shooting raises […]

Help Us to Hear These Voices: Prayers for Housekeepers, Child Soldiers, and Beirut (August 6, 2020)

Dear Lord, help us to hear these voices. I pray today that my knees and back hold up.  I pray that my mom and children are ok in our two-bedroom apartment while I work at a hotel and clean 15 rooms each day. I pray that my paycheck will be enough, that my car holds […]

Your Glory Fills the Skies: Prayers for Yemen, Locust Swarms, and Monsoon Floods (July 23, 2020)

Ever-creating God, Your glory fills the skies, from the transient sparkle of the fleeting meteor to the unexpected spectacle of Comet Neowise; your glory fills the earth from mountain height to ocean depth.  We praise you. As difficult as it is to find words to express how much your glory thrills and excites us it […]

How Long, O Lord: Prayers for the Pandemic, a Mexico Earthquake, and Arizona Wildfires (June 25, 2020)

(Many thanks to Evangelical Lutheran Church in America pastor/author, Nadia Bolz-Weber, for some of the prayer petitions.) God who is called by many names, God of this earth and all its peoples, today we are crying out, how long, O Lord? How long until we can touch our parents and beloved elders? (even as we thank you for […]

Is There No Balm in Gilead: Prayers After George Floyd, for Cyclone Nisarga and a Grieving World (June 4, 2020)

Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no physician there? So why has the healing of my dear people not come about?  ~ Jeremiah 8:22 Is there no balm in Gilead, Holy God? For we, your people, desperately need a balm, a healing, a sense that the desperate pain we are feeling will come to […]

Like Grasses Showing Tender Faces: A Prayer as the Pandemic Circles the Globe (March 12, 2020)

Every little thing is sent for something, and in that thing there should be happiness and the power to make happy. Like the grasses showing tender faces to each other, thus we should do, for this was the wish of the Grandfathers of the World.   Black Elk, (1863-1950) Oh God, we read these words […]

A Prayer at the Turn of the Decade: For Nations at War and Hearts in Despair (January 2, 2020)

Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above. James 1:17 Oh Lord, there are many things that concern us and call us to prayer. We open our hearts to you in gratitude and wonder. We pray for those who rage and are quick to anger, for those who seem to be eaten up […]