by ProfDave, ©2023
(May 3, 2023) — We are approaching the National Day of Prayer Thursday. Is God just a private thing? Just Jesus and I and the rest of you go hang? Is religion just about the flowers on the altar and an hour or so on Sunday morning, the attendance and the offering? Is prayer just about our daily bread and gas? Do nations matter to God? Who is my neighbor?
“This, then, is how you should pray: ‘Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.’” Matthew 6:9-10. Hold it right there! Is the USA on earth? It certainly isn’t in heaven. How should we pray for our nation?
“Dear God, please bless me and my wife, my son John and his wife – us four and no more, safe in the fold of my church where everything is proper.” Can we ignore our nation? Can we ignore our neighbor? Our nation is made up of neighbors. The consensus is that our nation is headed in the wrong direction. From foreign policy to the economy to natural resources to health to education to crime to race to families and children in most areas we are headed for perdition. That means our neighbors are headed for perdition. Do we love our neighbors? The least we can do is pray for them. This is not the time for those of us who think we know the right to retreat from our wrong nation into a holy huddle of protective isolation. St. Paul urged persecuted first-century Christians to pray for unelected Emperor Nero!
We have, however, a guilty conscience. By acknowledging the trouble our neighbors are in on every level and only praying are we like the character in the Epistle of James who says, “Be ye warmed and fed” to the destitute without doing anything about it? “Be ye warmed and fed and safe, your marriage sound, your family above the flood of sewage in entertainment and schools, and your children uncorrupted and ungroomed?” Would we have to do something about our toxic social environment? Ouch!
From Genesis to Revelation the message of Christ is the restoration of all that mankind has broken – and those who call themselves His are not exempt from participation, including mucking out the stables of politics. We worship in words and by doing the works He has prepared for us to do in this world.
Today’s Word: “David was greatly distressed because the men were talking of stoning him; each one was bitter in spirit because of his sons and daughters. But David found strength in the Lord his God.” I Samuel 30:6. David and his associates returned home to find their families had been taken captive by enemies – and the guys blamed him! Our families are being taken captive by toxic forces. Where are we going to find strength to bring them back? Pray, brothers and sisters!