Write His Answer

Guest Blogger
Loretta Oakes

For the past several years the decline of this nation has been happening at a rapid rate. The lack of a fear of God with our nation’s leaders has trickled down through the ranks. God sees all this. More than anything He wants us back, for He is a jealous God. He desires us to be with Him. So how does that happen that we return? You and Anne are right, through prayer…but right now only the righteous see that need. And so we do what Jesus asks, pray for each other.

But there is something else. Humanity hasn’t changed that much. The Old Testament teaches us that the Israelites would turn away from God with their idols and such and then God would allow their enemies to take over. Why? The parenting style, Love and Logic  teaches that there are natural consequences for our actions. For example, if a child throws a toy in anger, the toy is taken away. It is no different for adults. And I believe that it truly is the way our God disciplines us. He gave us free will, He won’t take that away, so instead there are natural consequences because one doesn’t learn by having their hand slapped, but they learn by having what they want taken away until they learn to appreciate it.

Here in the U.S., we have taken our freedoms too lightly, forgotten where they came from with respect to the sacrifices of our ancestors. Many don’t even know the Pledge of Allegiance. I’m not sure that we can hold back the natural consequences for our actions in not respecting unborn life, in our charge forward toward euthanasia, or our lack of respect for the human body in general. Each of those moments of defiance have caused a great rift in our relationship with God and His allowance of this country to continue.

We have become too complacent as a people here in the U.S. We have our view of “rights” and it has been deeply distorted. How do you teach that our unalienable rights and respect for others’ same rights is a privilege unless you take it away?  This is the quandary I speak of with regard to Anne Graham’s call.

We do need to pray, but I believe it goes well beyond seven days. The prayer and fasting of Lent that is followed by practicing Catholics has a value beyond Lent. It takes six weeks to form a new habit and I believe that ideal applies here. I love the three things that Anne is asking us to pray for. Love them. Each of them signifies a humility that we as a people need to apply daily in our lives and be an example for others. A spiritual awakening usually only takes root in suffering. We are a hard headed people, not much different from those that Moses dealt with in his conversations with God (Ex 33:5).

So this is my hope: that this prayer will last more than seven days. It needs to. And that we as a people will take to heart what history teaches us. It took, I believe, more than 50 years to get to where we are today. If we read the Bible we know that it took generations to fix their problems. Therefore, in addition to the three lovely prayers that Anne suggests, I hope that we will also pray for our children and their children because the consequences of our sin will fall hardest on them. They will be the ones that must maintain the faith and propagate Christ’s teachings. Let us embolden them with the teachings and the love that Christ sought to bring into the world. They are our hope now and the meaning for Christ’s words, “Let the children come to me…” (Matt 19:14.)

Don’t get me wrong! I believe there is still hope, but it will be long in coming and hard fought. We are seeing some hope with things like the Hobby Lobby decision (that is if people take the time to read it instead of relying on the “stiff-necked” media to interpret it for us). It’s not about contraception, it’s about four abortion drugs. Very different than the media spins it. And there are other victories too. Let us thank the Lord for these and pray for those who fought for them.
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Thank you, Loretta, for giving me permission to share the email you sent to me. And thank you for your blog, “Complementary Thoughts – Finding a Balance for Science and Religion” – http://lorettaoakes.blogspot.com/.  Friends, I encourage you to subscribe. I also encourage you to respond to Anne Graham Lotz’ “Urgent Call to Prayer”- http://www.annegrahamlotz.com/events/urgent-call-to-prayer/.