America’s National Day Of Prayer

Issues – May 2010 – Grace & Truth Magazine

THE FIRST THURSDAY IN MAY

America’s National Day Of Prayer

“If My people, who are called by My name, will humble themselves and pray and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land.” 2 Chronicles 7:14 NIV

In 1863, during the great Civil War which threatened to divide the United States, President Abraham Lincoln addressed his Proclamation of Humiliation, Fasting and Prayer to the people: “We have been preserved these many years in peace and prosperity. We have grown in numbers, wealth and power as no other nation has ever grown. But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten His gracious hand ... and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too selfsufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us.”

President Lincoln saw the disciplining hand of God in the Civil War of a nation whose people had forgotten God. Reminiscent of the verse above, his proclamation addressed the people: When those who have experienced the Lord’s mighty work of salvation and care forget His blessings and tempt Him with selfish independence, He sends leanness into their soul and discipline into their pathway (Ps. 106:15).

His proclamation should prompt us to ask ourselves some questions: Have I forgotten the God who made me, saved me and prospered me? Have I fallen for the lie of thinking that my successes are my own? Do I recognize my need for personal humiliation before the Lord? Do I realize that improving my relationship with the Lord actually helps my country? If so, then Lincoln’s Proclamation is still achieving its intended purpose. Let’s start praying – every day.

By Larry Ondrejack