Thank you for participating in the Cornwall Alliance’s Day of Prayer for the Environment and the Poor!

Throughout March 1-25, we will share many specific prayer requests for the environment and the poor. Here, however, are some broad, general ideas to guide you in prayer:

First, begin with praise and thanksgiving to God for

• His wisdom, power, and love displayed in all of creation;
• His faithfully preserving all of creation;
• His just judgments in creation for man’s sin;
• His plan to reconcile all of the cosmos to Himself through Christ’s death and resurrection;
• His provision for the salvation of sinners through the atoning death and vindicating resurrection of Christ;
• His making men and women in His image, able to comprehend His cosmos so as to fulfill His mandate in Genesis 1:28 to “be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over” everything in it;
• His reconciliation of millions of sinners to Himself, leading to the transformation of their minds by the Word of God, so that they can understand and control the earth with increasing wisdom;
• His provision for your daily needs for food, clothing, shelter, and much more;
• the beauty of oceans and skies, lakes and streams, forests and deserts, mountains and valleys, sun and moon and planets and stars;
• the beauty of fish and birds, animals and plants, and human beings;
• the fact that God has made the earth robust, resilient, self-regulating, and self-correcting, able to recover from many kinds of harms, natural and manmade.

These are just a few things for which to thank and praise God. No doubt you can think of many more! Feel free to email your ideas to stewards@cornwallalliance.org.

Second, pray in humble confession of your own misuse of God’s earth, which might include some of the following:

• thanklessness as you view its beauty and enjoy its other benefits;
• wastefulness in your use of resources such as energy and food;
• careless disposal of wastes that might instead have been transformed into resources through recycling;
• lack of concern for those with little access to food, clothing, shelter, energy, pure drinking water, sewage sanitation, highly productive agriculture, health care, transportation, education, and other benefits;
• any violations you recognize of any of the Ten Commandments or the two Great Commandments (to love God with all your heart, soul, strength, and mind, and to love your neighbor as yourself).

Having confessed these and other things, rejoice in God’s promise that if we confess our sins, God is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

Third, pray specifically for the billions of poor around the world, that they might

• be forgiven of their sins and reconciled to God by faith in Christ’s atoning death;
• benefit from the things that have lifted others out of poverty already, such as private property rights, limited government by the consent of the governed, entrepreneurship, the rule of law, free trade, and access to abundant, affordable, reliable energy;
• be protected from policies, at local and national and international levels, that would deprive them of any of those things necessary to rising out of poverty;
• be good stewards of the environments in which they live, learning and practicing wise use of resources and proper disposal of wastes.

Fourth, pray specifically for the billions of wealthy around the world, that they might

• be forgiven of their sins and reconciled to God by faith in Christ’s atoning death;
• take care lest they oppress the poor, either intentionally or unintentionally, by any of their actions;
• use their influence to prevent others’ oppressing the poor;
• give generously to help the poor;
• be good stewards of the environments in which they live, learning and practicing wise use of resources and proper disposal of wastes.

Fifth, pray for scientists, economists, other scholars, educators, journalists, and officials in all three branches of government, whose work shapes public opinion and government policies with impact on the environment and the poor, that they might

• have the wisdom they need to understand truly the workings of God’s amazing creation, especially on controversial environmental issues like climate change or economic issues like what societal arrangements do, and what ones don’t, lift societies out of poverty;
• have integrity in all their activities, that is, that they might “do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with God” (Micah 6:8);
• have the moral judgment to distinguish ethical from unethical policies;
• have the courage to stand for truth and righteousness regardless whether doing so is popular.

As with our first list, no doubt you can think of many more things to pray for regarding both the third, fourth, and the fifth. We welcome your emailing your ideas to us!

Finally, please pray for the Cornwall Alliance and other organizations promoting Biblical earth stewardship, asking that through their and others’ contributions, godly dominion over the earth might increase, that is, that men and women created in the image of God would labor lovingly together to enhance the fruitfulness, the beauty, and the safety of the earth, to the glory of God and the benefit of our neighbors.