How to Pray for Abort73 in Your City

I recently asked some friends of mine to join me in praying for Abort73's influence in Jacksonville, FL this month. To that end, I've put together a sample prayer to help identify some of the specific things I'd like to pray for. Though some of the requests in this prayer are specific to Jacksonville, it can easily be used as a prayer model for cities around the nation and world. I want to be more faithful in daily entreating God to use Abort73 to help eliminate abortion, and I'd love it if thousands of you joined me. Pick your city and start praying that God would grow the influence of Abort73 and shrink the influence of abortion. Not sure what to pray for? Hopefully this sample prayer will help...

Lord, you are high and lifted up. You are the Creator and Sustainer. You rule over all the earth. You do exactly as you please. You do not need me, but you love me and are pleased to use my weakness to show off your strength. In your presence is fullness of joy. Through trials comes endurance!

Oh God, I pray for the city of Jacksonville. You are intimately acquainted with all of the 1.3 million people who live there and each of the visitors who find themselves in the city today. I pray that you would use Abort73 to influence the way they think about abortion. I pray you would use Abort73 to help eliminate abortion in Jacksonville. I pray for the women who are scheduled to have an abortion today in this city. Statistically , there are 23 of them. Dissuade them. Use the people in their lives, use the Abort73 website to change their course. May a crisis of conscience overwhelm them. May they seek out the truth and find the truth. Protect the children whose lives hang in the balance. And provide for them all the things they need for life and godliness.

I pray for the churches in Jacksonville – for all the people who claim the name of Christ. Give them a heart for abortion-vulnerable women and children. Give them courage to step out in defense of the "least of these". Make them aware of Abort73. May they embrace Abort73's work and ministry, and use the resources to help educate their people and more effectively be a witness against abortion in their community. May the high school and college ministries partner with Abort73 in reaching their campuses. Create a culture of practical, loving service to the people in their community. Free the church from materialism, self-absorption, and fear. May the watching world look at your people in Jacksonville and marvel at what makes them tick.

I pray for the University of North Florida, Jacksonville University, Florida State College at Jacksonville and all the other colleges in the region. Hold Planned Parenthood back. Expose their agenda. I pray for the campus Christian clubs, that they would be willing to suffer the persecution of publicly condemning abortion. May Abort73 be a help to them and may their courage have eternal ramifications that go well beyond the abortion issue. Give them creativity and discernment as they combat abortion – innocent as doves and shrewd as serpents. May students become broadly familiar with Abort73 and may it wipe away the notion that abortion is a matter of personal choice.

I pray for the public and private high schools in Jacksonville. I pray for the school nurses and teachers. May they be instruments for good and not evil. May the Christians on campus care more about justice and mercy than they do about their reputation. I pray that Abort73 would infiltrate these campuses in ways that more traditional outreach models cannot. May your Spirit move to compel students to visit the site. May their curiosity get the best of them, and may the selfishness of abortion be exposed from campus to campus.

I pray for all the Abort73 shirts in Jacksonville. May they be worn often and strategically. I pray they would come out of their drawers and closets today. Place them in front of the right people at the right time, and may their numbers grow! May the Abort73 promo cards be left on right benches and tables and gas pumps. May Abort73 stickers find their way onto many bumpers and may all these pointers work in concert to bring more and more of Jacksonville's populace to Abort73. Overcome all of the social biases to open the eyes of the people in this community to the atrocity of abortion.

I pray for a faithful contingent outside the abortion clinics in Jacksonville – at Planned Parenthood and Jacksonville's Women's Health and Florida Women's Center and All Women's Center. May they consistently, humbly, and effectively intervene on behalf of the children whose lives hang by a thread. May the Abort73 signs be a means of pointing these men and women to Abort73.com at the 11th hour.

I pray for the pregnancy care centers in the region who are working to provide alternatives to abortion – for Women's Help Center and First Coast Women's Services and Emergency Pregnancy Services. Bring more women through their doors. Use Abort73 to drive women away from abortion and into the arms of ministries that will love them and help provide what is needed for their unborn child. Raise up people in this city who won't just be a witness against abortion, but will be actively involved in meeting the myriad physical needs of all those around them.

And Lord, over and above all this, I pray that you would be magnified in Jacksonville – that people would see your worth and would throw off their rebellion and the lesser, damning pleasures that characterize their rebellion. May the vanity and hopelessness of unrestrained, self-indulgence be exposed for all to see. Bring people to the end of themselves to say with CS Lewis, if nothing in this world satisfies, then we must be made for another world! May you be exalted and may I be filled with joy and thanksgiving, today and forevermore!