I realize I am a little late on my response. However, my fear is that we often don't pray about politics. These are servants that govern our lives and as we abide by God's commandments. Shouldn't we be asking him to guide those that help support and keep these commandments. I realize the seperation of church and state. But, I believe if your christianity goes beyond the service on Sunday. Then we have to continue to pray for leadership,for those who are lost, those endangered, those who are ignorant of the word of God. Their only chance to become educated is by Questioning and holding the leaders of our country accountable to God.

I experience prayer less as a conversation from the pray-er and more as a time when I quiet the thoughts in my head, or at least slow them down, enough that I become more receptive to God and the Universe.For me it is about creating more thin places in my heart and fewer hard places. I like the idea of praying for discernment, but have a hard ttime seeking a specific outcome. It seems to me very unhumble to think that I am wise enough to have discovered the optimum outcome.

I also think the power of prayer is in its effect on the one doing the praying. And I feel strongly that praying about or for the outcome of a football game, or any other sporting event, is a powerful way to trivialize prayer and distract the pray-er from the depth of being and nearly tangible communion with God that prayer makes possible. A sporting event is, bottom line, just a diversion--a well-attended, fervently contested, grand-scale amusement, about which the only untrivializing prayer might be, "Thank you, God, for the gifts of fun and excitement about this sport. Thank you for the blessing of a life that includes the leisure time to enjoy this game." (I say all of this while also admitting that I am a long-suffering SF Giants fan.)

But the politics of electing the President of the United States is not merely a diversion (and indeed is quite un-fun much of the time); the leadership of one of the most powerful nations on the planet is enormously important, and the outcome of the November election will have long-term effects on millions of people around the world no matter which candidate wins.

So I do think it's good to pray about the campaign, and about the election....perhaps not just "God, let my candidate win," but rather to ask for wisdom and discernment in learning about the candidates and the issues, and deciding how to vote, and talking to others about our choices and theirs. And perhaps also for all the candidates--that they will have strength and integrity through the exhausting process of running for office, and that they'll be truthful and thoughtful and fair-minded. And as I think about this a bit, I wonder whether the best prayer about the election might be, "God, let your love and peace and justice work their way in the world, even in this very imperfect electoral process we have." Not human justice (i.e., retribution), but Jesus-justice...the result of more and more people letting God fill them with love and acting (or not acting) accordingly. Even in the voting booth.

Hmmm... very interesting. I think that praying for the outcome of an event doesn't work on the event so much as it does have an effect on the pray-er or even possibly the people associated with the event. If prayer is personal I see praying for a particular candidate as a help to them because it is something that they personally feel so strongly about and that they have such a personal investment in, just as if we have prayers for members of the congregation or other worldly issues - it's about the people involved and not so much about the outcome of the event. And, in praying for a larger event or issue, there is some personal effect on the pray-er... I think it is a contribution to the election just as much as going and voting. I think that the power of prayer is a focus of energy and that energy snowballs into a number of related actions... getting more involved, hoping for a future that one may feel more interested in getting involved in, etc. anyway, just my two cents...