Senator Lankford Prays for Nation on Senate Floor

CLICK HERE to watch Lankford’s floor speech.

WASHINGTON, DC – Senator James Lankford (R-OK) today spoke on the Senate floor to pray for the nation ahead of the National Day of Prayer, which is an annual observance held on the first Thursday of May, inviting people of all faiths to pray for the nation. It was created in 1952 by a joint resolution of the US Congress and signed into law by President Harry S. Truman. In 1988, the law was amended and signed by President Reagan to designate the National Day of Prayer as the first Thursday in May. During his speech, Lankford addressed the attacks on synagogues and bombings on Christians.

Lankford joined Senator Angus King (I-ME) to introduce a resolution to recognize May 2, 2019, as this year’s National Day of Prayer. Lankford served as the honorary co-chair of the 2019 National Prayer Breakfast and serves as co-chairman of the Congressional Prayer Caucus.

Transcript

00:32-00:53 – This year, on May 2, with the theme, ‘Love One Another,’ we will again have a National Day of Prayer. It’s not a requirement for Americans to pray. It’s not a requirement of a person a direction to pray, a certain method, a sudden location. Just a call to the nation to say, ‘We have great needs as a country.’

00:54-01:24 – As we watch the attacks on synagogues in our country, as we watch bombings of Christians in Sri Lanka, gun battles that have erupted in churches in the United States, mosques that have been attacked, people of faith being targeted simply because of their faith it is a reasonable thing as a nation to be able to pause and say ‘how are we as this year’s theme says: loving one another?’.

02:48-04:24 – So if I can model for the nation for just a moment in my own way and encourage the nation on our National Day of Prayer to be able to pause and pray, I would simply say this, ‘Let us pray as a nation.’

Father, guide us. We need Your help. Controversy, the division in our nation, the anger, the struggle. Help us to be able to love one another. Help us to be able to see each other as You have created us and to respect You, Your wisdom and Your guidance: Father, we admit that we do not know as much as You. So we need Your help. We need Your insight. For our first responders and our military scattered around this nation and around the world, we pray Your protection for them, pray that You would give them insight. Help them to be able to represent us well. The members of our State Department, members in our government that are scattered around the Earth, members of our intelligence community, and others that serve us every day, God, would You guide them and would You protect them in the task and give them the insight they need? For federal employees that serve our nation each day, for members of our nation, that we’re finding ways to serve each other in our communities, would You help us this day to love one another and to be able to set the tone for a world that is watching us as a nation? Help us represent well You, who You have called us to be as individuals. In the name of Jesus, I pray, Amen.

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