Good News Report From the National Day of Prayer

I’ve been going to the National Day of Prayer for many years now. This year there was a marked difference. Usually the meetings are ecumencial and trying to bring everyone with such diverse backgrounds together without people being uncomfortable with the format. That’s no easy task as we all know.

But this year there was a fire in the prayers, perhaps even a desperation. Though the churches were just as divided as the country during the election I got a sense that people are starting to get that everything is not okay with this country. People are starting to grasp that the nation is now on a new track which in unashamedly no longer a Judeo-Christian track.

Reserved little old ladies with their hair up in buns were praying with the zeal and fervency of a 16 year old. This was not your standard “God bless America” prayer meeting. Not that there is anything wrong with those meetings. They are good. Keep them up! But this was more “God we need You! We are lost without You! Would You please turn this nation back to You?” It was passionate. It was exciting. It was real. The crowd was much larger than in past years. Probably because of the sense of desperation. One thing the president doesn’t get about Christians and conservatives is that persecution does not scare us off and cause us to shrink back. It emboldens us. It makes our convictions stronger. It makes us more determined and more resolute to never, Never, NEVER give up. They cannot have our nation! And the prayers and crowds today reflected that.

There was another thing that was surprising to me. I went to City Hall after the National Day of Prayer to do some actual business. (Living in a large municipality there were many venues observing today.) When I got there, they were still tearing down from the main event. Here I stood in the glorious and gorgeous main hall of county government and there were flyers about prayer. In addition each of the several offices I went into had flyers also. And there was not just the main prayer event from 11:30 – 1:00. Starting at 8:00 in the morning there was a box set up and a person manning it. You could take individual personal prayer requests and get prayer on the spot and know that people were going to be praying for you again later. I would go so far as to say it was shocking to me in this day of the ACLU that such open and obvious Christianity was permitted in the seat of government.

It was a good day. It was a very good day! Pray Team! Pray