I am the lead pastor of Christ the King Church in Stillwater, Minnesota, which is about a half-hour from the Twin Cities—Minneapolis and St. Paul.

Our local news has been alarming and discouraging in recent weeks. It grieves me how our magistrates are acting unjustly. As anti-ICE protestors swarm into Minneapolis, I keep thinking that I don’t want to repeat the George Floyd riots of 2020.

Some of our church members work in the Twin Cities, including a law enforcement officer who works in downtown Minneapolis. He is a husband and father, and our church recently baptized his school-aged children.

In our church’s weekly worship service, a pastoral prayer follows 1 Timothy 2:1–2 by praying for a government authority in our city, county, state, or country.

Yesterday, I prayed for ICE. Here’s what I prayed.

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The government authority we are praying for today is ICE—our country’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Father, please enable the government authorities who work for ICE to accomplish their lawful and moral mission: to “protect America through criminal investigations and enforcing immigration laws to preserve national security and public safety.”

In particular, thank you for the ICE officers who are bravely and honorably doing their job here in the Twin Cities of Minnesota. Please protect the ICE officers from wicked government officials like our state’s governor, Tim Walz, and the mayor of Minneapolis, Jacob Frey, who are inciting violent lawbreaking. Please protect the ICE officers from wicked men and women who are violent lawbreakers.

We pray with the psalmist in Psalm 58:

“Break the teeth [of the wicked] in their mouths, O God;
LORD, tear out the fangs of those lions!
Let them vanish like water that flows away;
when they draw the bow, let their arrows fall short.
May they be like a slug that melts away as it moves along,
like a stillborn child that never sees the sun.”

Father, the people of Minnesota don’t deserve your kindness. Our magistrates have sinned with a high hand.

They have empowered people to murder babies in the wombs of their mothers.

They have enforced policies that encourage transgenderism and that punish those who respect your good design for men and women.

They have granted sanctuary to citizens of other countries who are trespassing, and they have stolen billions of tax dollars from hardworking citizens.

They have encouraged protesters to obstruct the good and responsible work of law enforcement and to riot when they don’t get their way.

They have used rhetoric and empowered policies that endanger honorable law enforcement, such as our fellow member who serves as an officer.

We don’t deserve your kindness. But we plead for it. Please be merciful and gracious to us, Father. Please accomplish much good through all this evil. 

Please empower our fellow member who is an officer, along with other law enforcement officers, to be skilled and just. Help them faithfully serve our society as your servants who are a terror to bad conduct. Please protect them when they are in dangerous situations. And please encourage them and enable them to be righteous avengers who carry out your wrath on wrongdoers (Rom 13:3–4).

We ask all this so that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way (1 Tim 2:1–2). And we ask all this in the name of Christ the King. Amen.

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