More Than a Proclamation

Thursday, May 7, is the 58th Annual National Day of Prayer. Evidently, President Obama attaches less significance to the day than most of his predecessors. As of Wednesday afternoon, there was nothing more than a promise to issue a proclamation. (Update: The President issued the proclamation on Thursday, May 7. It can be read at the White House website.)

Issuing a very late National Day of Prayer proclamation tends to disappoint those who count prayer an essential ingredient for our national continuance and success. Issuing any proclamation about the day upsets atheists and secularists who are upset that Obama would give any legitimacy to prayer whatsoever.

One atheist blogger charges him with abandoning his seeming move toward secularism as outlined in his inaugural speech. She compliments him for going to Turkey and proclaiming that America is not a Christian nation and points out his inconsistency in proclaiming a National Day of Prayer, if he does. She further bitterly denounces Days of Prayer noting that past praying had little effect. "We just came out of one of the darkest periods in this country’s history and the country is in a shambles."

Evidently, the spiritual culture wars are largely lost, with no visible efforts on the part of legislators to either inspire or participate in any concerted prayer effort in Washington or the state capitols. Some atheists and secularists use the day to proclaim and engage in a National Day of Reason to deliberately counter prayer efforts.

America is not suffering from too much prayer but too little. Prayer is more than asking for daily bread, it is pleading, "And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil, for thine is the Kingdom and the power and the glory, forever, amen" (Matthew 6:13).

It is praying, as 1 Timothy 2:2-7 enjoins, "for kings and all who are in authority, that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and reverence. For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God and one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus,6 who gave Himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time…" The twofold purpose of this praying is not accumulating wealth but living in secure peaceful honor and enjoying freedom to share Christ.

Praying should also be penitential. "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 I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land" (II Chronicles 7:11).

The national woes we face from lust, greed and secular thinking are focused by Isaiah 1:4: "Alas, sinful nation, A people laden with iniquity, A brood of evildoers, Children who are corrupters! They have forsaken the LORD, They have provoked to anger The Holy one of Israel, They have turned away backward."

And we need the repentance of Isaiah 55:7: "Let the wicked forsake his way, And the unrighteous man his thoughts; Let him return to the LORD, And He will have mercy on him; And to our God, For He will abundantly pardon."

My hope is that the total trust of Ezra, returning to his homeland to reconstruct a wrecked nation, will be our prayer theme on this National Day of Prayer:

"Then I proclaimed a fast there at the river of Ahava, that we might humble ourselves before our God, to seek from Him the right way for us and our little ones and all our possessions. For I was ashamed to request of the king an escort of soldiers and horsemen to help us against the enemy on the road, because we had spoken to the king, saying, ‘The hand of our God is upon all those for good who seek Him, but His power and His wrath are against all those who forsake Him.’ So we fasted and entreated our God for this, and He answered our prayer." (Ezra 8:21-23 – emphasis mine)

Dave Virkler