America - Can It Be Great Again?

Everyone in Cleveland is taking a collective sigh of relief today.  I am confident that the police chief and mayor will be resting better at nights.  It appears that there will be no contested nomination in July at the Republican Convention.  Something unprecedented in American history is about to happen: the presumptive nominee for the office of President of the United States from a major American political party is a non-politician.  No experience in the House of Representatives.  No experience in the United States Senate.  Not even any experience as a governor.  In a time when many people are growing increasingly tired and weary of politicians, a multi-billionaire businessman stepped onto the political stage and talked to the American people in a language they could understand.  His appeal crossed almost every racial and social strata.  Now the question becomes whether he can unite his very fractured party - no easy task given the vitriolic language used during the primary season.  Now the question also becomes whether he can persuade a larger audience with his "Let's Make America Great Again" theme.  Now comes the task for all of us to do our homework and, above all, to begin to pray more earnestly for our nation and for God's guidance as we seek a new leader.

But, whoever is elected next November, he/she will be inheriting a nation that is not what it once was.  It is a nation divided into so many factions.  It is a nation divided along racial lines: blacks versus whites versus Hispanics.  It is a nation divided along gender lines, lines that have become increasingly blurred: it is no longer men and women, but men and women, men who want to be women, women who want to be men, men who want to be women sometimes, women who want to be men sometimes, and even those who don't know.  It is a nation divided along sociological and economic lines: the ranks of those living in poverty have swollen; the chasm between those who have and those who don't have has greatly increased.  It is a nation that has abandoned those absolute truth statements that nearly all Western civilizations have held sacrosanct for centuries and upon which our nation was birthed nearly 250 years ago.  It is a nation that has lost the concept of civility: we would rather shout at each other and protest against one another than to sit down and dialogue with one another.  It is a nation that has lost the art of compromise: no, each faction demands its own agenda.  It is a nation that has willingly abandoned its history - even seeking to erase that history when its does not fit with our present-day thinking.  But to abandon history is to set oneself free from anything that might give one direction and help to ensure a sense of purpose.  No, America is not what it once was!  I believe that if those brave men and women who labored so tirelessly and unselfishly to give birth to this nation could see what we are today, they would be shocked and alarmed for this is not the nation that they envisioned.

Can America return to what it once was?  Friends, that is the ultimate question.  And, the answer from Scripture is a conditional "yes."  Centuries ago there lived a great king in Israel named Solomon.  He had invested much in building a temple for the LORD God of Israel.  At its dedication he had prayed a long prayer asking God to have mercy upon His people when they sinned - for Solomon knew that people would sin - and to bring forgiveness.  God's response to that prayer is found in 2 Chronicles 7:13-14, "When I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or command locusts to devour the land or send a plague among my people, 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 will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land." 

There's God's answer.  Can America return to what it once was?  Yes, but only if it has a spiritual awakening.  And, as I read the above text, I find that the burden for that spiritual awakening lies within the Church, those people who know God.  We can no longer wink at sin.  We can no longer pretend that it does not exist or hope that it will simply go away if we choose to ignore it.  We need to understand that our deeply depraved spirits can only be healed with the gracious touch of a loving God, but that healing will not occur unless we truly seek His face through humility and prayer.

Tomorrow is National Day of Prayer.  Many will gather for prayer breakfasts, which, at least going by those I have attended in the past, focus more upon eating and speaking then upon prayer.  At our church here in Buffalo, MN, we have decided to invite people to gather around our flagpole and to pray for our community, for our nation, and for our world.  We know that God will hear us - for we have that promise from Him.  Will God answer?  Perhaps it will be the moving of His Spirit to ignite an awakening within our own homes.  How wonderful it would be to see families invite Christ to be the center of their homes.  And, yes, perhaps America can return to what it once was.  But the task will be an arduous one and cannot be done without much prayer and dedication to Truth.