Nampa Mayor’s Prayer Breakfast: Pastor Gabe’s Prayer for the Families of Nampa
The State of Idaho recognizes Almighty God to be the one and only potentate by whom blessing in our society is possible. Our own Constitution reflects this in its preamble:
We, the people of the State of Idaho,
grateful to Almighty God for our freedom,
to secure its blessings and promote
our common welfare do establish
this Constitution.
Almighty God (El Gibbor Isaiah 9:6) is a specific declaration to a particular God. We recognize that unless this God builds the household of Idaho, we labor in vain.
Introduction and Orientating Thoughts
Except the Lord build the house, they labour in vain that build it: except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain.2 It is vain for you to rise up early, to sit up late, to eat the bread of sorrows: for so he giveth his beloved sleep.3 Lo, children are an heritage of the Lord: and the fruit of the womb is his reward.4 As arrows are in the hand of a mighty man; so are children of the youth. Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them: they shall not be ashamed, but they shall speak with the enemies in the gate.
Psalm 127
A community is a group of households bound together for mutual edification and cooperation. Cities and States by extension are merely a collection of households. With this in mind it is important we remember that the family is the foundation of society.
Our God sovereignly and providentially presides over our lives, but God in his divine wisdom uses means. The future of the city of Nampa shall be determined and conducted through the faithfulness of individual households and families.
With this in mind, join me in a prayer for the families of Nampa—
A Prayer for Nampa Families and Households
Oh Triune God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, we come before you to recognize that you alone are Holy. You alone are worthy you alone are God, and you have revealed yourself to us relationally as Father and Son. We recognize that family is a creation extended from your own nature.
Pastor Gabriel Render 5.1.2025
We further recognize in accordance with your word in Acts that you–
— made the world and all things therein, seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands;
25 Neither is worshipped with men’s hands, as though he needed any thing, seeing he giveth to all life, and breath, and all things;
26 And hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation;
27 That they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and find him, though he be not far from every one of us:
28 For in him we live, and move, and have our being
And we recognize oh Lord that in you through whom we have our being, that you as well have set the institution of the family as a firm foundation for all of humanity.
We praise you for the goodness of the family, for the blessing of marriage, for the gift of masculinity and femininity and the unique way in which the two natures are made equal and yet distinct. We thank you that you have made fathers to protect, provide, and lead and mothers to nurture, nurse, and care. Lord we thank you for relative prosperity, good work to do, and vocations to provide. We thank you for thriving households, the laughter of children, the endless chores, the sleepless nights, and beauty of the family as you have ordained it.
Lord, we confess that in many of our households, the family is but a broken dream. We pray lord for the divided homes, the wounded hearts, the bitter separations, and the children torn between worlds. Oh, Christ who binds up the brokenhearted we pray that the salve of the Gospel would bring not only salvation to these broken households, but redemption, restoration, and renewal.
Strengthen the families of our city that they may not only honor you with their lives, but live fruitful and productive lives that build up our community and contribute to the establishment of your kingdom here on Earth. Oh Lord Hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done here, in Nampa Idaho as it is in Heaven.
Lord, we pray particularly for the Christian households of Nampa that they might be a city on a hill, a light shining to illumine the joy, peace, and hope found in your beautiful creation of the family, particularly as restored by the Gospel. May you preserve marriages, shape young men into godly and self-controlled elders, young women into righteously contented matrons. Lord, sanctify the families of our city that we might not be like those who have no hope.
Lord, we recognize the many assaults upon the family in our modern age. We confess the confusion, rebellion and wickedness not only tolerated but promoted in our society at large. God, we pray that your word would reign in the lives of your people, and that you would save us from ourselves. Most horridly Lord, we confess that even in Idaho, child sacrifice still looms as a dark shadow over our community. Lord far too many call upon Molech and bid his blessing through prescriptions or trips to Oregon with no fear of penalty.
We pray lord that you would convict the sin of those who have sought such wickedness, call them to repentance and cleanse them in Christ of their sin. Restore to them joy in the community of faith. May we as your people be doers of your word and not hearers only.
Lord, cause us to be a people who love and protect children.
God, we pray that we would not settle for this destructive force against the family, and that by your grace you would cause the people of Nampa to see children, our smallest neighbors in the womb as fellow citizens, fellow immortal souls and rather than be hardened in fear, selfishness or hate, that we would pursue the blessing of children. Oh lord build our households, lest we labor in vain in our building, fill them with children that we need not fear the future nor enemies in the gates.
Lastly Lord, we recognize that a household cannot stand without a firm foundation. We pray Lord that you would establish Christ, that great cornerstone of the church, as the firm foundation upon which our homes are built. I pray Lord that the members of this community would know Christ, the true Christ and be united as your people in the historic faith handed down for generations.
Lord, may we not be led astray by various manmade myths and distortions of the truth but hold firmly to the gospel which you have delivered- that though all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, that Christ lived the life we could not live, died the death that we deserve, triumphed over sin, death, and the tyranny of the devil that he who resurrected might grant us resurrected life in Him. So father, Son and Holy Spirit, we pray that Nampa’s families would rest in this truth. That fathers would lead their families in prayer and worship of the most high God and that you would bless the families of Nampa and then use them as a blessing to the Treasure Valley, Idaho, the Mountain West, the Nation and beyond.
Save our families oh Lord, build our families oh Lord, sustain our families oh Lord, use our families oh Lord.
We ask this together through Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, world without end, amen.
