Additional National Prayer Needs
Pray for our Military
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin ordered a month-long “global posture” review to assess how the U.S. can best arrange and support its network of troops, weapons, and alliances, focusing more on China and Russia without retreating from longstanding Mideast threats.
In his first meetings with his counterparts at NATO, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin reaffirmed the president’s aim to revitalize ties and commitment to its mutual defense pact, while urging allies to meet their defense spending targets. NATO’s secretary general welcomed the “unique opportunity to open a new chapter in relations between Europe and North America.”
Pray for the Defense Secretary and for the Joint Chiefs of Staff as they make decisions that affect America’s national security.
Pray for AMERICA’S FREEDOMS
A newly-released Rasmussen poll shows a strong majority of U.S. voters say an increase in the power of government leads to a decrease in individual freedoms, with 63 percent saying increasing government’s power means individual Americans will enjoy fewer freedoms. Just 22 percent disagreed, while 15 percent were “not sure.”
Pray for God’s will to be done in the nation as individual freedoms and rights decrease under the growing U.S. government.
Pray for AMERICA’S FOREIGN RELATIONS
Taiwan’s air force was scrambled after eight Chinese fighter aircraft flew into the southwestern part of its air defense zone in another display of increased military activity around the democratic island. Beijing, which claims Taiwan as Chinese territory, says it is responding to what it calls “collusion” between Taipei and Washington. The U.S. is Taiwan’s main international backer and weapons supplier.
Unidentified gunmen stormed the Government Science College in Nigeria, abducting 27 students and some staff and family members in an attack that overwhelmed the school’s security detail. In 2014, 270 schoolgirls were abducted by Boko Haram and around 100 of them are still missing.
Pray for the Secretary of State and others in the administration as they make decisions concerning both China and Islamic terrorism.
Pray For AMERICA’S HEALTH AND WELL-BEING
Pfizer is reporting that its vaccine works well with one dose and can be stored more easily. At least 20 states are finding ways to free up stockpiled vaccines.
The World Health Organization published an investigation into the origins of the COVID-19 virus. The report said that it was “extremely unlikely” that the virus escaped from the Wuhan Institute of Virology. The Wuhan Institute of Virology is an infectious disease laboratory that has for years conducted experiments with coronaviruses. Richard Ebright, the lab director at Rutgers University’s Waskman Institute of Microbiology, and Rasmus Nielsen, an integrative biology professor at the University of California, Berkeley, voiced concerns about the report staying the findings are incomplete and potentially unreliable.
Pray for the CDC, the vaccine makers, and others who favor vaccinating the majority of Americans.
Pray for AMERICA’S RELATIONSHIP WITH ISRAEL
Israeli authorities are trying to determine the source of an oil spill that is believed to have released hundreds of metric tons of oil into the Mediterranean, drenching more than 100 miles of coastline and forcing beach closures. Officials are calling it one of the worst wildlife disasters to ever happen in the area and say it will take months, or even years, to clean up.
Acting U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Richard Mills told the UN Security Council that President Biden’s administration was reviewing U.S. relations with the Palestinian leadership, and restoring “credible agreement” with the Palestinians, as it works toward a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. “Under the new administration, the policy of the United States will be to support a mutually agreed two-state solution, one in which Israel lives in peace and security alongside a viable Palestinian state,” he said.
Pray for the relationship America maintains with Israel and its allies among the Arab states.
Pray for THE AMERICAN ECONOMY
Retail sales—purchases at stores, restaurants, and online—increased in January according to the Commerce Department, up 5.3% over the previous month and 7.4% over January of 2020. The increase followed a slight decline during the holiday season.
The rising popularity of cryptocurrency is likely to continue, market experts say, fueled by mistrust of central banks and uncertainty about the debt-laden future of the United States.
Pray that the United States’ economy may grow and recover.
Pray for Goodness in America
A worker in a retail party store gave a yellow balloon to a 2-year-old. The youngster was so overwhelmed that the simple gesture has gone viral. The Yellow Balloon Challenge has now become of a way of acknowledging each other’s existence through kindnesses in their West Virginia community as people find ways of showing small acts of kindness. The guidelines are simple: say hello to a stranger, shovel a neighbor’s driveway, pay for the car behind you, or just make someone else smile.
Pray that Christians would lead the way in showing love to their neighbors and that by doing so God would receive the glory.
Pray for America’s Media
Bipartisan members of Congress plan to introduce a bill in coming weeks to make it easier for smaller news organizations to negotiate with Big Tech platforms. This would cause platforms like Facebook and Google to lose some of their bargaining power. The legislation could boost sales in the struggling news businesses where social media companies use the news to attract customers but advertising revenue is low.
Pray for legislators who are working to address concerns that Big Tech holds monopolies and is hampering start-up competitors from gaining a foothold.
Pray for America’s Education
The Department of Education has opened an investigation into the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee. According to the department, the university has “apparently never filed” a report detailing foreign gifts and contracts, as is required under the law. The university’s own website lists partnership agreements with nearly 200 institutions worldwide and it is alleged that more than 85 percent of all funds come from close collaboration with “foreign sources.”
Pray for administration officials seeking to reveal the influence that foreign governments and individuals exert upon institutions of higher education across America.
Pray for America’s Technology
The Justice Department has charged three North Korean computer programmers in a broad range of global and destructive hacks, including targeting banks and a movie studio. Federal prosecutors say all three are members of a military intelligence agency of the North Korean government.
President Biden is planning on taking executive action in response to the alleged Russian hack of at least nine federal agencies in a breach by Solar Winds. He will address “gaps” in federal government cybersecurity identified in a recent review by the intelligence community.
Pray for the administration officials as they make plans to protect American industry, banking, hospitals, and federal agencies from hacking by foreign entities and governments.
Pray for Needs Across the States
The Maryland state senate voted to override its governor’s veto setting up a tax on digital ad revenue from major tech companies which is projected to generate as much as $250 million in its first year that the state will use to fund education reform.
Pennsylvania’s Independent Fiscal Office said raising the state’s minimum wage would stimulate economic growth, even though it increases costs for employers. “It would overall increase economic growth because it is an income transfer from higher-income to lower-income individuals,” the executive director said, adding, “We did find, because it is an income transfer to lower-income individuals who spend all the money they receive, we did find it would increase economic growth. It would expand the economy.”
Pray for state governments as they deal with both state and individual incomes and economies.
Pray for America’s Faith Community
“The truth is this, it’s hard to have faith in a government, because government’s made up of human beings. And it’s hard to have faith in money, because money will come and go. But heaven is the greatest way for us to bring hope to our souls. We lift up our eyes, and we set our minds on things that are to come. In any moment, we lift up our eyes and think about heaven, it’ll immediately bring a shaft of light into the darkest moment.” – Max Lucado, Author, Pastor, Oak Hills Church, San Antonio, Texas
