An Appeal to Heaven

Prayer has always been powerfully employed in our country for guidance, protection and strength, from the earliest time when we were only loosely united and isolated colonies. The Pilgrims at Plymouth relied on prayer during their first and gloomiest winter. George Washington “appealed to heaven,” when his Continental Army crossed the icy Delaware River on the night of December 25, 1776, in a logistically challenging and dangerous operation. Benjamin Franklin called for prayer during the Constitutional Convention in July, 1787. Tempers flared and interests clashed as the delegates sought their respective goals. It was at this time Franklin offered his famous appeal for harmony and reconciliation, an appeal for God’s intervention.

Later in October, 1789, President Washington would say at his Thanksgiving proclamation, “It is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits and humbly to implore His protection and favor.” Colonials believed their newly established nations many freedoms were a direct gift from God.

President Abraham Lincoln was also aware of the benefits of prayer. It was his belief that, “it is the duty of nations as well as men, to owe their dependence upon the overruling power of God.” At the most tumultuous period in his presidency, he found the dire need for supplication. Before the battle of Gettysburg, he turned to God in prayer. “I went to my room one day and I locked the door and got down on my knees before Almighty God and prayed to him mightily for victory at Gettysburg.”

Today the need for continuous and relentless prayer is greater than ever.

Our nation again faces spiritual warfare on all fronts pushing our citizens into drug abuse, gambling debt, bankruptcy and suicide, along with an epidemic of dysfunctional families, violence and dissension. Our leaders must bow their heads in prayer just as the great people did in the past to avoid plunging our nation into a certified death spiral. God has provided us with everything we need to win the spiritual confrontations, accentuating the awareness to know it, believe it and act upon it. It’s through prayer that we recognize and wield the weapons and wear the spiritual armor as described in Ephesians 6.

We must ask the Lord to bless our political and corporate trailblazers with wisdom and protection and to give us the fortitude to overcome the challenges that lay ahead. We pray that corporate leaders have insight to follow in God’s ways toward peace, freedom and the pursuit of happiness. We pray for our national and local elected officials to heed God’s wisdom in their legislation, judgments and activities. We pray that each of us does our best in our efforts as we are striving to do God’s will.

Mark Gunderman
Stephens City, Virginia