“Therefore I exhort first of all that you make supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings for everyone” (1 Tim. 2:1).
Yesterday, my brother Franklin invited me to participate in a telephone prayer call for Venezuela. He described his increasing burden for the people there that stretches back over the last several years as 3.4 million people have walked out of the country. The socialist regime has reduced Venezuela, once the wealthiest country in Latin America, to less than third-world status.
In recent elections, socialist President Nicolas Maduro was defeated, but he has refused to relinquish his position and his power. While the legitimately elected president, Juan Guaido, has the full backing of the United States and 50 other countries, he cannot assume his position.
If someone wants to leave, the government allows them to take only one suitcase of belongings. Franklin described entire families walking across the border, dragging one suitcase behind them. And he said these are middle-class, well-to-do people who cannot survive the current conditions. Franklin spoke with one man who was coming back into Venezuela with a small plastic bag clutched in one hand. Inside were a few vegetables. When Franklin asked him if he could get vegetables in Venezuela, he said, “No more.” President Maduro has now sealed the borders so no humanitarian aid can enter the country. The people are starving and desperate, so they have taken to the streets in violent protest. Because the country’s leadership is backed by the military, the fear is that the tension is leading up to a massacre.
After Franklin described the crisis taking place right now in Venezuela, Vice President Mike Pence came on the phone. He shared that President Trump had contacted him to reach out to the faith community and ask God’s people to pray for the crisis in Venezuela. While President Trump travels to Hanoi to meet with the president of North Korea, Vice President Pence will be traveling to Bogota, Columbia, on Monday to meet with the leaders of Latin American countries.
In response to the vice president’s request, please pray with me:
Lord of the Nations, we bow before You as we acknowledge that You are seated on the throne at the center of the universe. You are in charge. In control. You are sovereign as You rule over the affairs of men.
You are our heavenly Father who loves the whole world: rich and poor, great and small, ignorant and educated, strong and weak, old and young, male and female. You love us all.
Thank You for giving us Your Son as our soul’s Savior, our Redeemer, our rescuer.
We now unite our voices as we ask You to look on the people of Venezuela. Give them Your full, undivided attention. Hear their cries. Heed their prayers. Help them, O Holy Lord. Break the enemy’s stranglehold; bring down the illegitimate government; compel patriotic men and women in the military to abandon President Maduro. Above all, we ask that in this desperate hour, You turn the hearts of the people to You.
Blessed deliverer of the oppressed, defender of the weak, we call on You to protect the innocent, bring to justice the guilty and set Venezuela free—without a massacre.
We ask You to give unity of vision and will to Vice President Pence and the leaders he meets with on Monday. Give them Your wisdom to know what to do in order to help the Venezuelan people—and the courage to do it.
Thank you for President Trump and Vice President Pence, who acknowledge that You are a prayer-hearing, prayer-answering God. Thank You for blessing us when we depend on You. Thank You that You prove Yourself strong on behalf of the weak.
We now lay this prayer before You, trusting You to answer us according to Your will.
In the name of the Prince of Peace, our Lord Jesus Christ, Amen. {eoa}
Anne Graham Lotz, second child of Billy and Ruth Graham, is the founder of AnGeL Ministries and former chairman for the National Day of Prayer Task Force. She has authored 15 books, including her latest, The Daniel Prayer.
This article originally appeared at annegrahamlotz.org.
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