In the Dark of Night Remember to Pray for America - Pray for America Because Without America There is No Free World.

Judi McLeod / Canada Free Press

At the end of each day as we lie abed each and every night there is something many of us forget to do.  That something forgotten is to pray for America.

In the vale of tears that life on earth is and has always been; in the misery that Marxism continues to spread among vulnerable masses, we pray for family members and friends who have fallen ill.  We pray our job will be there for the foreseeable future, and even that we can somehow make this month’s rent or mortgage.

At the end of the day when we turn out the lights and lay in our beds, when there is no one there but our conscience and the Creator, we tend to pray for people we know and about personal events perhaps thinking praying for a whole country is abstract.

The very lives of some who came before us and who were riddled with the same night-time doubts were prayers, the ‘prayers’ throughout history who led the rest of us through the darkest of times.

That living ‘prayer’ named George Washington was never afraid to get down on his knees to pray in the mud.

O eternal and everlasting God, I presume to present myself this morning before thy Divine majesty, beseeching thee to accept of my humble and hearty thanks, that it hath pleased thy great goodness to keep and preserve me the night past from all the dangers poor mortals are subject to, and has given me sweet and pleasant sleep, whereby I find my body refreshed and comforted for performing the duties of this day, in which I beseech thee to defend me from all perils of body and soul.

 

Direct my thoughts, words and work. Wash away my sins in the immaculate blood of the lamb, and purge my heart by thy Holy Spirit, from the dross of my natural corruption, that I may with more freedom of mind and liberty of will serve thee, the ever lasting God, in righteousness and holiness this day, and all the days of my life.

 

Increase my faith in the sweet promises of the Gospel. Give me repentance from dead works. Pardon my wanderings, & direct my thoughts unto thyself, the God of my salvation. Teach me how to live in thy fear, labor in thy service, and ever to run in the ways of thy commandments. Make me always watchful over my heart, that neither the terrors of conscience, the loathing of holy duties, the love of sin, nor an unwillingness to depart this life, may cast me into a spiritual slumber. But daily frame me more and more into the likeness of thy son Jesus Christ, that living in thy fear, and dying in thy favor, I may in thy appointed time attain the resurrection of the just unto eternal life. Bless my family, friends & kindred unite us all in praising & glorifying thee in all our works begun, continued, and ended, when we shall come to make our last account before thee blessed Saviour, who hath taught us thus to pray, our Father.

 

From William J. Johnson, George Washington, The Christian (New York: The Abingdon Press, 1919).

Not all prayers are recorded in journals for today’s reading, but they are every bit as fervent.  People of Faith know in heart and soul that every prayer sent up by the most humble and history’s so many unknown are recorded in the books of Heaven.

Some of the most desperate and heartfelt prayers can still be heard in the eerie silence of battlefields like Gettysburg.