Author: Jayson

God,

Within the lull, bless Lebanon.

Waiting for subsequent steps.

Will new leadership deliver?

What crisis will come next?

France promised to stand with the nation.

The prime minister promised reforms.

Officials have threatened the port probe.

New nitrates have threatened the peace.

Skilled resources are leaving.

While donated fuel arrives.

Is the expat disenfranchised,

With vote rescheduled March?

Only you, God, see clearly the future.

Only you, God, know what must take place.

 Join somehow your mercy and justice.

Uproot, plant again, harvest well.

Stability you do not promise.

The lukewarm you threaten to spit.

Make cold in godly mourning.

Make hot for hungered good.

Our incomes destroyed by the world’s worst inflation.

Our dignity crushed as we wait for our gas.

God, solve these problems of finance and transport.

Expose every criminal who manipulates well.

Keep us secure in your favor.

Humiliate not your beloved.

But humble us truly. Our nation

Might then rise again. May it be.

Amen.

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To receive Lebanon Prayer by WhatsApp, please click this link to join the closed comments group.

---

Sometimes prayer can generate more prayer. While mine is for general principles, you may have very specific hopes for Lebanon. You are welcome to post these here as comments, that others might pray with you as you place your desires before God.

If you wish to share your own prayer, please adhere to the following guidelines:

1) The sincerest prayers are before God alone. Please consult with God before posting anything.

2) If a prayer of hope, strive to express a collective encouragement.

3) If a prayer of lament, strive to express a collective grief.

4) If a prayer of anger, refrain from criticizing specific people, parties, sects, or nations. While it may be appropriate, save these for your prayers alone before God.

5) In every prayer, do your best to include a blessing.

I will do my best to moderate accordingly. Thank you for praying for Lebanon and her people.

God,

He had to say something, he’s the person in charge.

He thus shrugged his shoulders and said that he’s sad.

The fuel violates sovereignty, it came from Iran.

But no sanctions please as we didn’t arrange.

Could he have done something? At the border refuse?

But then suffer the optics with cars in long lines?

Adding three days of gasoline, it claims to break siege.

At least it is something as few else will help.

He then raised the prices; the subsidy shrinks.

But did he even do it or someone somewhere?

A policy statement, the details vague.

Tough issues shelved until when? We don’t know.

An IMF loan bid. Two power plants or three?

A year of reforms, the strong president vows.

The central bank audit, it then will extend

To all other ministries—corruption rots.

The country moves forward, the steps taken are good.

But all the same measures discussed long ago.

While subpoenaed ministers failed to arrive

At their court summoned hearings. Illegal, they say.

God, thank you for government—a responsible start.

Now give them the courage to govern in fact.

Take decisions unpopular—if they are right.

And find the consensus to drive through reforms.

Some say they’re all criminals, and maybe some are.

God, we want justice to jolt Lebanon.

But with none of us angels, we all must repent.

Let me list my own among sins of this land.

We have to pray something, what else can we do?

We’re tired and we’re anguished. But you’ve put us in charge.

You’ve given authority, it came from your son.

Now help us to use it—the heavens arrange.

We fight against darkness, in the spiritual realm.

We rebuke the spirits of greed, fraud, and lies.

They surround our leaders, who thus need our prayers.

God, heal our country, drive us to our knees.

Amen.

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To receive Lebanon Prayer by WhatsApp, please click this link to join the closed comments group.

---

Sometimes prayer can generate more prayer. While mine is for general principles, you may have very specific hopes for Lebanon. You are welcome to post these here as comments, that others might pray with you as you place your desires before God.

If you wish to share your own prayer, please adhere to the following guidelines:

1) The sincerest prayers are before God alone. Please consult with God before posting anything.

2) If a prayer of hope, strive to express a collective encouragement.

3) If a prayer of lament, strive to express a collective grief.

4) If a prayer of anger, refrain from criticizing specific people, parties, sects, or nations. While it may be appropriate, save these for your prayers alone before God.

5) In every prayer, do your best to include a blessing.

I will do my best to moderate accordingly. Thank you for praying for Lebanon and her people.

God,

The prayer is simple: Help the government to work.

Whatever broke the impasse now decisions can be made.

So many still are skeptical.

The problems still so large.

But hope must come from somewhere while the people wait and see.

God, we ask their blessing: Discernment, wisdom, strength.

Some are hailed as capable though party links are clear.

No politics in cabinet,

Said its head. With tears

He pledged his utmost effort for the mothers, children, poor.

God, use well his millions. And too the widow’s mite.

Talents spent on your behalf can reap a hundredfold.

Many have been hoarding.

But many more have shared.

Now bless these hidden helpers who keep Lebanon afloat.

God, we seek your rescue. And justice to protect

The least of these from most of them whose welfare they devoured.

True, not all are guilty.

But each one blames the rest.

Accountability must reign if Lebanon is to heal.

God, bring down the prideful. The humble, elevate.

May this long-awaited government pursue your holy will.

Reforms must be forthcoming.

Each sect must serve the whole.

You have formed this cabinet; to fix things, or to judge?

God, we give them to you. Our hope, for you reserved.

Forgive their sins and cleanse their hearts so that their plans succeed.

My conscience, too, is guilty.

I share my nation’s faults.

Lift us up out of this pit—redeem me, them, and all.

Amen.

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To receive Lebanon Prayer by WhatsApp, please click this link to join the closed comments group.

---

Sometimes prayer can generate more prayer. While mine is for general principles, you may have very specific hopes for Lebanon. You are welcome to post these here as comments, that others might pray with you as you place your desires before God.

If you wish to share your own prayer, please adhere to the following guidelines:

1) The sincerest prayers are before God alone. Please consult with God before posting anything.

2) If a prayer of hope, strive to express a collective encouragement.

3) If a prayer of lament, strive to express a collective grief.

4) If a prayer of anger, refrain from criticizing specific people, parties, sects, or nations. While it may be appropriate, save these for your prayers alone before God.

5) In every prayer, do your best to include a blessing.

I will do my best to moderate accordingly. Thank you for praying for Lebanon and her people.

God,

No progress still on cabinet.

Not smiling face, not bearded one.

No progress still on Beirut port.

The probe on hold, as leaders balk.

But who can attend to these files of note—

Essentials of governance, justice, for all—

While sitting in gas lines or home in the dark?

Or worse yet a victim of crime on the rise.

Gunshots at stations.

Fuel tankers seized.

Gangs mark their area.

Eight incidents a day.

God, how long can this go on?

October, if the subsidies lift?

But then the price just bankrupts more.

The middle class is pummeled whole.

Worse off are the very poor

Whose numbers only ever rise.

Where is the promised ration card?

Was nearly ready, weeks ago.

At least the dollar help will come,

Though that took months to make agree.

But who will get it, when, and how?

No cabinet, no justice. Why?

God, you know.

And God, you cry.

Is it a weeping with shoulders bent inward?

Collapsed in despair and unable to act?

What can you do when the men you appointed

Instead rob the vineyard and beat those you send?

Or is your response a loud outcry of anger?

Stirred to your core you will rise up and raze

Every last vestige of Lebanon. Death.

But one last ditch effort:

Send first your son.

Who will it be, God?

They killed the son—it brought salvation.

And then your wrath was rightly poured

Only on those who truly deserved it

While others found refuge confessing their sin.

But who among all Lebanon’s faithful children

Might come forward to lead something new, something true?

Perhaps to be beaten.

Perhaps to succeed.

But call them forth, God.

Save the vineyard.

Renew.

Amen.

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To receive Lebanon Prayer by WhatsApp, please click this link to join the closed comments group.

---

Sometimes prayer can generate more prayer. While mine is for general principles, you may have very specific hopes for Lebanon. You are welcome to post these here as comments, that others might pray with you as you place your desires before God.

If you wish to share your own prayer, please adhere to the following guidelines:

1) The sincerest prayers are before God alone. Please consult with God before posting anything.

2) If a prayer of hope, strive to express a collective encouragement.

3) If a prayer of lament, strive to express a collective grief.

4) If a prayer of anger, refrain from criticizing specific people, parties, sects, or nations. While it may be appropriate, save these for your prayers alone before God.

5) In every prayer, do your best to include a blessing.

I will do my best to moderate accordingly. Thank you for praying for Lebanon and her people.

God,

Not East nor West said Lebanon’s pact.

From whence then comes the fuel?

An Arab face, but not entire—

And thus linked far afield.

For years it all flowed through the Gulf

Until they ran afoul.

Corruption steals the best of aid,

And guns too much to bear.

So now the country has run dry,

No friends of which to turn.

After defaulting on the debt:

Compassion, pity—please.

But from the East the cry is heard:

Our fuel supplied with honor.

We’ll take your lira, send a ship.

Resist humiliation!

And then the West in turn replies:

We’ll help you through the system.

With Egypt, Jordan, lending hand,

The UN is your partner.

Immobilized and scrambling still,

Officials reach decision.

A compromise on subsidies:

Solution through September.

Not East nor West, at least for now.

The edifice is crumbling.

God, we ask your gracious help.

So many people suffering.

“Who will save us from this sin?”

Said St. Paul (paraphrasing).

“What a wretched man I am”—

Can we say of the nation?

He knew his freedom in God’s love,

And yet he kept on stumbling.

So much of Lebanon is good,

But chaos—ever-present.

A slave to East? A slave to West?

Between them torn asunder?

Or bound to “what it does not want”?

Sectarian entire.

Where then is the equivalent:

“Thanks be to God—salvation!”

“Deliverance through Jesus Christ,”

For Lebanon’s Constitution?

Can God redeem the national pact?

Or is it national idol?

A law—though good—brings only death.

Shows sin becoming sinful.

God, we don’t know where to turn.

Can your love rescue nations?

So many sects; can St. Paul speak

To Muslim as to Christian?

But all can pray with humble hearts,

For medicine, fuel, and water.

Unite them, God, their parties too,

Around a clear consensus.

So East, or West, or both, or none.

But free—no condemnation.

Your spirit-guide through every call

That issues from the nations.

Desiring only spirit-mind,

And from it, life and peace.

God, give to Lebanon fuel it needs,

But so much more essential:

Submission to your holy ways,

Then righteous, resurrection.

Amen.

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To receive Lebanon Prayer by WhatsApp, please click this link to join the closed comments group.

---

Sometimes prayer can generate more prayer. While mine is for general principles, you may have very specific hopes for Lebanon. You are welcome to post these here as comments, that others might pray with you as you place your desires before God.

If you wish to share your own prayer, please adhere to the following guidelines:

1) The sincerest prayers are before God alone. Please consult with God before posting anything.

2) If a prayer of hope, strive to express a collective encouragement.

3) If a prayer of lament, strive to express a collective grief.

4) If a prayer of anger, refrain from criticizing specific people, parties, sects, or nations. While it may be appropriate, save these for your prayers alone before God.

5) In every prayer, do your best to include a blessing.

I will do my best to moderate accordingly. Thank you for praying for Lebanon and her people.

God,

It took only a moment, with nary a warning,

Suddenly subsidized fuel was no more.

With officials aghast—“the move is illegal”—

Others asked why, with the ration card near.

The president called for emergency meetings.

The caretaker prime minister quickly said no.

His cabinet immobilized by constitution:

Only an authorized government can act.

Will you, God?

Then a second moment, again with no warning,

Suddenly a depot of fuel was no more.

Illegally stored at the time of the blast,

Twenty-plus perished with dozens more burned.

Officials in outcry demand resignation,

As others pledge inquiry, just like before.

One more disaster, shaking the people.

But who in the cabinet is authorized to act?

Are you, God?

But what to expect when we throw you our problems?

Are you pro or con subsidies? Where is your will

When it comes to distributing files in government?

If you bother with Lebanon, is it only to sigh?

But surely you care for the healing of bodies,

And yet AUB doctors may soon shut their doors.

Along with the hospitals throughout the country,

None can obtain the fuel needed to work.

How long, God?

Just when it feels like hitting rock bottom

Another event digs the hole deeper still.

How long can Lebanon continue in chaos?

How long your chastening, punishment, wrath?

Or is it the evil one, let loose to plunder?

Your hand of restraining has lifted, and thus

The result of endemic corruption is painful.

The wages for sinners is death, says your book.

What then, God?

In only a moment, without any warning,

Your Christ will appear and set everything right.

This is our hope—but is it our only?

Have we nothing more to expect in this life?

With or without the subsidies your love continues.

If no fuel or medicine, your grace still abounds.

Give us strength to pursue the ideals of your kingdom.

On the earth let us work so that your will is done.

If so, we rejoice that your good serves so many.

But now, we must mourn—and there seems no relief.

Comfort those who lost their loved ones.

Provide the means for all to live.

Hold accountable the government.

Convict our sins, revive our land.

God, may our nation look to you for mercy.

In only a moment, salvation can come.

Amen.

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To receive Lebanon Prayer by WhatsApp, please click this link to join the closed comments group.

---

Sometimes prayer can generate more prayer. While mine is for general principles, you may have very specific hopes for Lebanon. You are welcome to post these here as comments, that others might pray with you as you place your desires before God.

If you wish to share your own prayer, please adhere to the following guidelines:

1) The sincerest prayers are before God alone. Please consult with God before posting anything.

2) If a prayer of hope, strive to express a collective encouragement.

3) If a prayer of lament, strive to express a collective grief.

4) If a prayer of anger, refrain from criticizing specific people, parties, sects, or nations. While it may be appropriate, save these for your prayers alone before God.

5) In every prayer, do your best to include a blessing.

I will do my best to moderate accordingly. Thank you for praying for Lebanon and her people.

God,

There should have been just one to note:

The Beirut explosion and all traumatized.

A moment of silence, a moment of rage.

Indeed thousands rallied for justice, for grief.

And with them the pledges of nations in concert,

Millions of dollars that may one day come.

But God this outpouring so quickly was sandwiched;

Explosions anew that distract and destroy.

Revenge killings rattled the south of the capital,

Sunni tribes with the Shiite militia in charge.

And then unclaimed rockets were launched cross the border,

Prompting response by the Zionist state.

And thus in deterrence, resistance demanded

That several more rockets strike enemy soil.

This time to be claimed by the Shiite militia,

Though with harsh condemnation, and local Druze angst.

God, keep the peace.

God, keep the focus.

Not that politicians neglect the explosion:

They call to reveal who sourced it to port.

They call to remove all official immunity.

But no one has done so; no one takes charge.

God, how long must we wait until your detonation,

Your anger to pour on the guilty entire?

Or have you already denounced the whole nation,

As David once chose for the plague to strike all?

But his heart was trusting: Your mercy is greater,

And better your hand than the enemy’s sword.

But might southern rockets invite more destruction?

Might localized strife escalate civil war?

God, we pray for justice.

God, we long for peace.

Your wrath can flare up in a moment.

Your patience is what we all need.

God, balance Lebanon in your wisdom,

And grant every citizen—rest.

Amen.

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To receive Lebanon Prayer by WhatsApp, please click this link to join the closed comments group.

---

Sometimes prayer can generate more prayer. While mine is for general principles, you may have very specific hopes for Lebanon. You are welcome to post these here as comments, that others might pray with you as you place your desires before God.

If you wish to share your own prayer, please adhere to the following guidelines:

1) The sincerest prayers are before God alone. Please consult with God before posting anything.

2) If a prayer of hope, strive to express a collective encouragement.

3) If a prayer of lament, strive to express a collective grief.

4) If a prayer of anger, refrain from criticizing specific people, parties, sects, or nations. While it may be appropriate, save these for your prayers alone before God.

5) In every prayer, do your best to include a blessing.

I will do my best to moderate accordingly. Thank you for praying for Lebanon and her people.

God,

You oblige us to pray for the king,

And those in authority—but what when so many?

We lift up the name of prime minister designate,

And of the president with whom he confers.

But God, we prayed also for the former candidate,

And the one before him, and the one before that.

Not to mention the speaker, and heads of the parties—

Does Lebanon suffer from too many cooks?

But worse is what comes from widespread accusation:

Lebanon suffers from too many crooks.

God, you know.

God, we pray anyway.

You can ensure that a cabinet forms.

But God, when it does, we have more names to pray for?

Eighteen, or twenty, perhaps twenty-four?

Each one a means for political patronage?

They should be a means for your blessing to flow.

So many are frustrated, God.

Why have our prayers not been answered already?

Going back decades, suffering war.

Can it be that the nation has not labored sufficiently?

With its hands, with its minds – and especially knees?

Must we weep? Must we fast? Put on sackcloth and ashes?

Or calmly acknowledge your good sovereign will?

God, the kings are many.

But they agreed—to mourn.

There is much more to do to honor the victims

Of the criminal blast almost one year ago.

But honor their marking of this anniversary,

While holding accountable all who bear guilt.

Lift the immunities.

Structure the sanctions.

Shield the people from all further hurt.

God, give Lebanon a government.

And prayers of the righteous—effective in power.

Amen.

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To receive Lebanon Prayer by WhatsApp, please click this link to join the closed comments group.

---

Sometimes prayer can generate more prayer. While mine is for general principles, you may have very specific hopes for Lebanon. You are welcome to post these here as comments, that others might pray with you as you place your desires before God.

If you wish to share your own prayer, please adhere to the following guidelines:

1) The sincerest prayers are before God alone. Please consult with God before posting anything.

2) If a prayer of hope, strive to express a collective encouragement.

3) If a prayer of lament, strive to express a collective grief.

4) If a prayer of anger, refrain from criticizing specific people, parties, sects, or nations. While it may be appropriate, save these for your prayers alone before God.

5) In every prayer, do your best to include a blessing.

I will do my best to moderate accordingly. Thank you for praying for Lebanon and her people.

God,

No money, no medicine.

Less food on the shelves.

And now we are told that the water won’t flow?

Maybe the oil will come from Iraq.

If not, then the hospitals’ power is cut.

Delta is coming. Vaccine rates stay low.

And a thousand-plus doctors have traveled abroad.

Will there be hope in a new politician?

A prime minister maybe, with cabinet plan?

God, we have prayed that you raise up the leaders

Able and willing to serve Lebanon.

Is this the round that will soon prove decisive?

Or weeks and months further, with no one in charge?

Have we nothing to hope but the prayer of the prophet:

“Though all things are failing, I trust in my God.”

God, let us repeat it.

God, strengthen our faith.

God, rescue the country.

God, cleanse our wicked ways.

Until then, and if not, can you make it so?

Truly my heart can rejoice in the Lord?

Make my feet like the deer. Let me tread on the heights.

Let me pray for my people.

Let me plead for my land.

God, there is little we can do of substance.

Powerful interests and groups get their way.

Even so like the child with sling in his pocket,

Slay the Goliaths who immobilize us.

Our prayers are the stones, direct them to target.

We know not where to aim—only you know the heart.

Hear as I cry out while full of frustration:

This politician, or that, is the cause.

Maybe it’s true, and rule in your wisdom.

Where I have agency, strengthen my hand.

But give us respect for the sincere in difference.

Yes, they are sinners, but I am the worst.

Will such a prayer help restock the medicine?

Will our humility maintain water flow?

God, we are floundering.

God, we grow hopeless.

Somehow help my heart to press on, in faith.

Amen.

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To receive Lebanon Prayer by WhatsApp, please click this link to join the closed comments group.

---

Sometimes prayer can generate more prayer. While mine is for general principles, you may have very specific hopes for Lebanon. You are welcome to post these here as comments, that others might pray with you as you place your desires before God.

If you wish to share your own prayer, please adhere to the following guidelines:

1) The sincerest prayers are before God alone. Please consult with God before posting anything.

2) If a prayer of hope, strive to express a collective encouragement.

3) If a prayer of lament, strive to express a collective grief.

4) If a prayer of anger, refrain from criticizing specific people, parties, sects, or nations. While it may be appropriate, save these for your prayers alone before God.

5) In every prayer, do your best to include a blessing.

I will do my best to moderate accordingly. Thank you for praying for Lebanon and her people.

God,

Nine months of effort, and near the beginning

Everyone feared they would not find accord.

A lineup submitted, rejected, then insults,

Followed by go-betweens trying to help.

The cycle repeated with president steadfast,

As prime minister-designate traveled abroad.

Meanwhile we all waited for some resolution

To regional issues and nuclear deals.

Maybe its coming, and with it a bailout—

That others call caving to Western demands.

Or else full submission: Iranian interests.

But as we’re kept waiting things only grow worse.

Why, God?

Surely there are reasons. Maybe some make sense.

But back where we started all feels like a void.

Curse them?

Hail some?

Is there a side in omniscience you laud?

You want to bless us, and shower with favor

Those who are humble and righteous in deed.

But what of the suffering? Is it a trial?

Merely the birth pangs of good, soon to come?

Or is it your chastening? Or worse, even wrath?

Is it ours, or the fault of our leaders who sin?

God, you know.

Please show us the truth.

But rebuke the pride of each one who is certain.

Give introspection to every hard heart.

I ask for my leaders, and those still emerging.

I ask for myself, for I know not your will.

Bind our broken spirits, God.

Heal our broken land.

Amen.

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To receive Lebanon Prayer by WhatsApp, please click this link to join the closed comments group.

---

Sometimes prayer can generate more prayer. While mine is for general principles, you may have very specific hopes for Lebanon. You are welcome to post these here as comments, that others might pray with you as you place your desires before God.

If you wish to share your own prayer, please adhere to the following guidelines:

1) The sincerest prayers are before God alone. Please consult with God before posting anything.

2) If a prayer of hope, strive to express a collective encouragement.

3) If a prayer of lament, strive to express a collective grief.

4) If a prayer of anger, refrain from criticizing specific people, parties, sects, or nations. While it may be appropriate, save these for your prayers alone before God.

5) In every prayer, do your best to include a blessing.

I will do my best to moderate accordingly. Thank you for praying for Lebanon and her people.