David Platt’s Prayer at March for Life

Before I pray, I should say that, one year ago, God used this March along with a variety of other means to call my wife and me to begin the process of adoption. We have adopted two of our four kids, and we thought our family was complete, but God thought different. We began praying for a child, not knowing if we would adopt a boy or a girl. Our kids decided that until we met this child, we would just call him or her Wonderfully Made, because this is what God calls them in Psalm 139. We prayed month after month over the last year for Wonderfully Made until we were matched with a three-year-old little boy, and next week he will officially become part of our family.

I share this because I praise God for a mom, a woman herself wonderfully made by God, who chose to give life to a precious boy I will soon call my son. As we pray, let’s pray that God would use this march not as a memorable experience or political event, but as a means by which more lives wonderfully made by Him might be saved.

As I lead in prayer, I thank God for people of various faiths who stand on this stage for life. I gladly join with them in this movement even as I now pray specifically to God in the name of Jesus. Let’s pray.

David Platt’s Prayer at March for Life

Oh God, before we march, we pause to praise you, our Creator. Not one of us is standing here today by accident. You knit each of us together in our mother’s womb. Before we were even born, you knew us. No matter who we are, no matter the color of our skin, regardless of whether we were born healthy or with a disability, we are all fearfully and wonderfully made by You, and you are worthy of all our worship. You are holy above all, you are sovereign over all, you are just in all, and You are merciful to all who call upon You.

We march today in need of your mercy. All of us, we are all sinners. From The White House to every house, our President, our Vice President, every member of Congress, every Supreme Court justice, every citizen of this country, including every one of us marching today is a sinner. We have all turned aside from your ways to our ways in our lives and as a country in so many ways—and how we have settled for racial injustice . . . and how we have ignored the immigrant, the marginalized, the poor, the neglected, the needy . . . and how we have confused sexuality, abused authority, objectified beauty . . . and in how we have taken the lives of children, which is the reason for our gathering today.

A Plead to God

We plead, oh God, before we march: we pause to plead today for an end to laws in our country that make it legal to murder a child. We plead for your mercy. Oh God, we confess that under the guise of protecting women, we have destroyed women, including the lives of 500,000 little women this last year whose bodies you were beautifully knitting together in their mother’s womb.

We confess that under the guise of promoting freedom, we have stolen freedom from a million little boys and girls over the last year who were defenseless against our machinations. We confess that we have dressed up abortion in all kinds of language about our rights and our privacy and our plans for our lives. But in the end, a million children over the last year are dead, and we did it.

God, have mercy. God, have mercy on children. God, have mercy on moms. God, have mercy on dads. God, have mercy on us. Please open the eyes of every person in our country to see the beauty and the wonder of what you are doing in pregnancy. God, help us to love women in pregnancy, to care for them, to serve them, to honor them––particularly when they can’t see a way forward, when they may not want a baby, help us to come alongside them and say we will take them. We’ll take care of you as a mom if you are not ready to be a mom. We will care for your children. We will lead the way in foster care and adoption so that every child in our country, from the moment of conception, knows that they are fearfully and wonderfully made by a God who loves them more than they can imagine.

Thank God for His Love

Oh God, your love is truly unimaginable, incomprehensible for this world full of sinners, for you have not left us alone. You have come to us, born a baby like us, from a mother’s womb for us. Jesus, you lived among us, caring for us, healing the sick, helping the weak, giving hope to all in need, and we took you, God in the flesh, and we killed you. We nailed you to a cross as you willingly took the payment for our sin, death upon yourself, so that we could be forgiven, so that we could be forgiven for having abortions, performing abortions, encouraging abortions, or even standing idly by and doing nothing about abortions––so that all who trust in Jesus can be completely forgiven of all our sin, healed from all our sin, and restored to relationship with you to live life to the full in your image.

God, open our hearts to receive this mercy, and God, cause our lives to reflect this mercy to precious children in the womb, to the beautiful women who carry them, and to every single person, wonderfully made by you. In Jesus’ name we pray these things, Amen.

Now, let’s march.