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Reflections

Presidential Prayers

In my elementary school days in a one room school house, February was considered “President’s Month.” As this is a presidential election year in our country, I thought it good to once again devote this month to remembering our history.

Together we will review some presidential prayers as an inspiration to daily pray for our country during this crucial election year.

The Prayers of John Adams and Abraham Lincoln

As tourists visiting the White House several years ago, we had the privilege of seeing many of the rooms open at that time to the public. A few years later in Kansas City we saw the miniature replica of the entire building. Both times, we came away impressed not only with the awesome beauty of the structure, but the forward-thinking of the men who built it.

John Adams, our second president, was the first resident of the White House. His prayer written on the second night of his residence is now posted in the State Dining Room:

"I pray to heaven to bestow the best of blessings on this house and all that shall hereafter inhabit it. May none but honest and wise men ever rule under this roof."

It is an appropriate prayer we should pray again this election year.

Interestingly enough, the prayer is posted under a portrait of Abraham Lincoln, the president nicknamed “Honest Abe.”

On April 30, 1863, with a nation in the midst of the tragic Civil War, President Lincoln at the request of the Senate issued a proclamation calling this nation to prayer. Excerpts from that proclamation are as follows:

…it is the duty of nations as well as of men to own their dependence upon the overruling power of God; to confess their sins…and to recognize the sublime truth, announced in the Holy Scriptures and proven by all history that those nations only are blessed whose God is the Lord…

…We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of Heaven. We have been preserved, these many, years, in peace and prosperity. We have grown in numbers, wealth, and power as no other nation has ever grown, but we have forgotten God.

…We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace, and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us, and we have vainly imagined in the deceitfulness of our own hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God who made us;

It behooves us then, to humble ourselves before the offended Power, to confess our national sins, and to pray for clemency and forgiveness.

When we read these documents, we realize how desperately we are in need of prayer today for our nation.

Let us join John Adams and pray for honesty and wisdom, not only in the White House, but in the total political arena. Let us respond to Abraham Lincoln’s call to prayer by personal humility and intercession for a nation in need of God’s forgiveness and blessing.

Points to Ponder

Am I taking seriously my responsibility to pray for my nation? Beyond my prayers, what are my Christian responsibilities as a citizen of this nation?

PEGGY MUSGROVE is a licensed Assemblies of God minister. She is also a speaker, freelance writer, author and prayer group leader. Her latest book, Musings of a Maraschino Cherry was released in 2004.. You can visit her at www.musgroveville.com.

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