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Fasting and Prayer

  • Mar 1, 2008

In 1863 President Lincoln designated April 30th as a day of national humiliation, fasting, and prayer. Let me share a portion of his proclamation on that occasion:


"It is the duty of nations, as well as of men, who owe their dependence upon the overruling power of God, to confess their sins and transgressions in humble sorrow, yet with assured hope that genuine repentance will lead to mercy and pardon, and to recognize the sublime truth announced in the Holy Scriptures and proven by a history that those nations only are blessed whose God is the Lord. The awful calamity of civil war which now desolates the land may be but a punishment inflicted upon us for our presumptuous sins, to the needful end of our national reformation as a whole people. 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 that made us. We have grown in numbers, wealth, and power as no other nation has grown, but we have forgotten God."   

As I read this again I could not help but long for Godly leaders who were not ashamed to call the nation to a season of intense prayer and repentance.  No political maneuvering or political correctness. I know we have national calls to prayer (at least in form) but something often seems missing. The calls and pronouncements for national prayer have in many instances been reduced to well orchestrated formalities marked by breakfasts and dinners, complete with keynote speakers and distinguished guests, accompanied by the expected pomp and circumstance. 

Somehow I don’t think that’s what Lincoln had in mind. Look at how he asked the nation to pray.  Confession of sins, Repentance, Brokenness, Faith and optimism,  Total reliance on God We need nothing less than a renewed passion for intense prayer that moves God not men. Prayer that longs for the power of heaven that it may transform the world here.

In His Grace, Pastor Randy