Today I’m going to take a little detour from the Creation Bible story, but I want to still focus on “beginnings.” It is so important that we remember our beginnings! As I stated in a previous post, the reason I am so passionate about the Creation story is because if you can’t believe in the beginning of the Bible, why would you believe the end?
I think the same is true for our country. I worry about how the story of the beginning of our nation constantly gets distorted or maligned. We are a nation that was founded on Biblical principles. The Pilgrim’s journey to America (we celebrate their 400 year anniversary this year…) was made so they could practice their Christian beliefs! We fought a Revolutionary War to make sure our freedoms to keep practicing our Christianity would remain and not be taken away from us. Now, were these people perfect? Absolutely not. Are you? Sinful people still do good things all around us all the time. No country or people have a history free from bad things. But in focusing on the bad, we miss that our nation was founded on Biblical teachings. We are a nation built on God….”we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”
And yet, what we have seen in the last 8 months is these freedom’s being taken away from us. The right to worship in many states is still a struggle and pastors are being faced with fines and threats because they dare to open their doors. Isn’t this America? Home of the free? I realized that some of these restrictions might not be taking place in Nebraska, but if this kind of governance can happen in ANY state in the United States, why would we think it wouldn’t happen here as well? To be honest, it never crossed my mind that my country would behave the way it has this year. I have always been pretty quiet politically and just done my civic duty when election time came around but watching churches being closed and other atrocities that have occurred this year, I am shocked! What has happened to the United States? I think I know…we are a nation that has turned from God.
Isaiah 5:20-21 “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter. Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes and clever in their own sight.”
Did you realize that many times in our nation’s history the President has issued days of prayer and fasting? And you know what? Miracles have occurred! I listen to lots of preaching and podcasts during my work day. In my listening, I learned of an author named William J Federer. He is an American Historian and he is FANTASTIC. He wrote a book called Miracles in American History. He can recount MULTIPLE times when truly, only the hand of God could have accomplished what happened. In almost every account either the military leadership or government leadership requested a day of prayer to God prior to the miracle taking place. I am including two links to one of his talks about his book Miracles in America HERE and HERE. I promise, you won’t regret hearing of these amazing accounts!
With that said, I am also going to ask that you join Franklin Graham, and I hope several others, in a day of Praying and Fasting on Oct 25. I truly believe we live in a great country, but I also believe we have gone astray from so much of our Biblical teaching. I hope this is God’s way of waking Christians up to pray and speak out against things we know to be wrong. The world is good a dressing up sin to look okay and even acceptable – you can put a fancy suit on a chicken, but at the end of the day it’s still a chicken…it’s just a chicken inside a suit that is likely falling apart and probably extremely soiled. If it sounds like sin and looks like sin….chances are….it’s sin! However, in many cases, we as Christians, have gotten so used to living with the sin all around us, what are we to do? My suggestion? We pray. We humble ourselves. We ask for God’s forgiveness and turn from our evil ways.
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 I will hear from heaven and I will forgive their sin and I will heal their land.”
Pray and fast with me, won’t you? And maybe, this will be another year in our nation’s history where God shows us yet again another miracle!
