One Nation Under God

I have felt it all week. This tug. This “you should write something patriotic for the fourth”. I am patriotic. I stand, hand over heart, when the flag passes and we sing the national anthem. I pray for our country and our troops. I feel it more this time of year though. This week I do a lot of praying for our country, usually in some meeting or other when I'm called on to pray.

The rest of the year, it’s business as usual. I get riled up when I receive another email with yet one more instance of God’s being removed from our lives. We’ve all seen them. A phrase left off this memorial; words cut out or taken down in that court building. I feel strongly for ten minutes or so and then righteous anger gives way to helplessness – no way I can make a difference. So I pick up my swiffer, my Nintendo or head for Walmart.

This country was founded on a belief in religious freedom. It was also founded on a belief in God. He can be seen in so many places in our nation’s capital. For now, at least. We as a country live with His blessing and by His grace. We usually quote 2 Chronicles 7:14, “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.”

We need to remember that it’s all His anyway. He’s entrusted it to us, blessed us with this place of our birth. This needs to be my “if only we could keep Christmas every day of the year”. I will continue to pray, next week, and the week after. To pray for an entire country seems futile. But I believe God listens.

Psalm 95:1-7
Come, let us sing for joy to the Lord; let us shout aloud to the Rock of our salvation. Let us come before him with thanksgiving and extol him with music and song. For the Lord is the great God, the great King above all gods. In his hand are the depths of the earth, and the mountain peaks belong to him. The sea is his, for he made it, and his hands formed the dry land. Come, let us bow down in worship, let us kneel before the Lord our Maker; for he is our God and we are the people of his pasture, the flock under his care.