A Day of Prayer

A Day of Prayer
By Rev. Lonnie C. Crowe

Former governor Mike Huckabee has called our nation to prayer on January 20, “Join me for "A Day to Pray", where we will ask God to grant our leaders, from the local school houses to the White House, the wisdom they need for the road ahead. We will gather to ask God for forgiveness and healing of our land and to bless our Country and her people. This will not be a political rally but a spiritual event and hopefully one that can help bring us together as we move forward as a nation.”
As we pray wisdom, forgiveness, healing and blessing over our land, we must remember the admonition of 2 Chronicles 7:14, “"If my people, which are called by my name, shall 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 must come before our God with cleansed hearts.  As the Body of Christ, we must humble ourselves, individually and corporately, we must pray, seek the face of God and turn from our own wicked ways so that God will hear from heaven and heal our land.  Let’s spend the next few days preparing our hearts to join in pray for our nation.
As we pray for wisdom, let’s remember James 1:5, “If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him.”  Remember also that the reverential awe of the Lord is the beginning, the foundation of wisdom (Proverbs 1:7).  Wisdom is not dependent upon the thinking of the world.  Wisdom is dependent upon the will of God.  Wisdom is that ability, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, to make wise decisions.  “Lord, we pray for wisdom that we might make Godly decisions in our private lives and then in the public arena.”
We cannot pray for the forgiveness of the sins of our nation while we remain unforgiven and harbor unforgiveness in our own hearts.  “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who have trespassed against us” (Matthew 6:12).  If we desire forgiveness for the sins of our nation, we must forgive others and seek God’s forgiveness for our own trespasses. 
1 John 1:9-10: “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us.”  “Heavenly Father, forgive us for we have sinned.”
As we pray for healing of the brokeness in our nation, we must first ask for healing for our own brokeness–healing for our fear, our lack of faith, our sense of hopelessness, our irrational anger, our spitefulness, our despair.  Then we can cry out for the healing of our land. 
Then we can walk in the promise of 2 Chronicles 7:15 “Now My eyes will be open and My ears attentive to prayer made in this place.”

Let us pray.