Observations©
By Donald S. Conkey
Date: May 3, 2007 - # 918 – Prayer Day (814)
Today is the 56th anniversary of a unique national religious custom that began in 1952
with a resolution passed unanimously by Congress, and then signed by President Harry Truman, and is known as America’s “National Day of Prayer.”
It was initiated to remind America of the active role ‘prayer’ played in the lives of the Founding Fathers and
in the creation of America as a ‘Christian’ nation, as well as being a positive force in the lives of all who
pray to God, their “Father in Heaven.”
I doubt that today’s Congress would even
consider such a resolution let alone pass it unanimously. Attitudes and beliefs about God and prayer have changed dramatically
in America and throughout the world during the past 56 years.
Today these beliefs of the Founders are being
ignored in our schools, especially in our universities, and often challenged in the media, though they are historically correct.
Benjamin Franklin, speaking to the constitutional convention delegates during a very dark period, stated: “In this situation
of this assembly, groping as it were in the dark to find political truth, and scare able to distinguish it when presented
to us, how has it happened, Sir, that we have not hitherto once thought of humbly applying to the Father of Lights to illuminate
our understandings? In the beginning of the contest with Britain,
when we were sensible with danger, we had daily prayers in this room for divine protection. Our prayers, Sir, were heard –
and they were graciously answered. All of us who were engaged in the struggle must have observed frequent instances of a superintending
Providence in our favor…. I have lived, Sir, a long time; and the longer
I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth, that God governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall
to the ground without His notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without His aid?” Franklin’s
God is the same God Jefferson referred to as the Creator in his Declaration.
The efforts to discredit these Founder’s
beliefs is growing. Note these words from one of New York Times David Brooks’ recent columns: “Once the Bible
shaped all conversation, then Marx, then Freud, but today Darwin is everywhere.”
And: “God may exist and may have set the process in motion (nice of him to admit this possibility), but he’s not
active.” These words leaped off the page at me. This type of thinking dominates today’s ‘elite’ media
culture. Evolution has become the ‘in thing’ to believe in today.
But for
the millions of ‘believers’ whose “souls hunger” for eternal truth God is very real and very active
in their lives. Prayer is real for those who pray – as real as breathing, seeing, or feeling. It is a force that can
make bad men good and good men better. And it is real for me, and for those hundreds who ‘prayed’ for my recovery
in recent months. Their prayers were heard.
To whom,
and to what, do people turn to in their time of greatest need—to God, in prayer? It is a natural instinct, as natural
as breathing. We observe this natural instinct of turning to God, in prayer, almost daily, either in our own life, or in the
lives of others, as we observed recently by thousands of Virginia Tech student mourners. Prayer was real to those mourners,
and God was alive in calming and comforting those youthful mourners, helping them to continue with their daily activities.
For me
the most poignant scriptural lesson regarding prayer is told in Luke 22 where Christ, in a period of great stress prayed to
his Father in Heaven. The story reads: “And he was withdrawn from them about a stone’s cast, and kneeled down,
and prayed, saying, Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me: nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done. And
there appeared an angel unto him from heaven, strengthening him. And being in an agony he prayed more earnestly: …”
This
prayer is a powerful example of how a prayer is asked, and answered. Those who have poured out their heart and soul to their
“Father” have, like me, had their own “angel” sent into their lives to “strengthen” them,
sent to provide comfort in a time of great need. For those of us who have felt this powerful force strengthen and comfort
us, in answer to prayer, know with assuredly that God is active in their lives, and lives.
Today
is America’s National Day of Prayer – so let each
of us pray, as the Founder’s did, for our nation, and for the continuity of this nations freedoms, and America’s
elected leaders. America, as it did in 1776, and today’s
elected leaders could use our prayers. Returning God to the fabric of America’s
culture may be its only salvation.
