August 6, 2015
Dear Liberty,
As chaotic as America seems today, it is not the first time citizens have experienced such strife and discord with their own countrymen. The land was literally divided.
In the beginning of the Civil War, events did not go well for the anti-slavery North. Lincoln and the Union Army suffered defeat after defeat. The power of the armies of the Southern states steered Northward, threatening to overtake Washington DC and reshape the Nation. If circumstances didn’t change, the Stars and Bars would surely fly over the White House and secure slavery as the way of life for all in the young country. (see How The South Was Won)
Both sides were confident that God was behind their struggle. Lincoln, however, was faced with a sobering reality. “I have been driven many times upon my knees by the overwhelming conviction that I had no where else to go. My own wisdom and that of all about me seemed insufficient for that day.” This realization led him to refocus his efforts. “My concern is not whether God is on our side; my greatest concern is to be on God’s side, for God is always right." Lincoln put this understanding to action and asked the people to join him in one simple act - A Day of National Humiliation, Fasting, and Prayer. He issued the following proclamation:
SIMPLE SOLUTIONS
Following this simple show of humility by a President, and a nation of people willing to do likewise, the tide of the war shifted. Prior to the National Day of Prayer, the Union won only two battles. After the National Day of Prayer, the Union suffered only two defeats.
Perhaps we are at a time that such a humble act of national prayer could again turn the tide that is leading to the slaughtering of Christians, Jews, and homosexuals in the Middle East. (see Holocaust: Then And Now) It may reawaken our hearts to call on God and turn from the slaughter of children through abortion. Over the past 40 years this national disgrace, hidden under the mask of women's rights, has killed more babies than the entire population of Canada.
As activists across the nation are ripping God from our schools, public areas and government, the country is falling faster and farther into a hell on earth. The solution is simple. It is time once again to be driven to our knees and search out God’s will, not ours. (see God's Divine Providence) We need to submit ourselves to His wisdom and His righteousness.
“If my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.” 2 Chronicles 7:14
That’s my 2 cents.
Love,
Mom
A Day Of National Humiliation, Fasting, and Prayer in The United States Of America on April 30, 1863
WHEREAS, the senate of the United States, devoutly recognizing the Supreme Authority and Just Government of Almighty God, in all the affairs of men and of nations, has by a resolution, required the President to designate and set apart a day for National prayer and humiliation:
And whereas, it is the duty of nations as well as of men, to 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 all history, that those nations only are blessed whose God is the Lord:
And, in so much as we know that, by His divine law, nations, like individuals, are subjected to punishments and chastisements in this world, may we not justly fear that 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? We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of Heaven. We have been preserved, these many years, in peace and prosperity. We have grown in numbers, wealth, and power as no other nation has ever grown. But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace, and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us; and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. 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! It behooves us, then to humble ourselves before the offended Power, to confess our national sins, and to pray for clemency and forgiveness.
Now, therefore, in compliance with the request , and fully concurring in the views of the Senate, I do, by this proclamation, designate and set apart Thursday, the 30th day of April, 1863, as a day of national humiliation, fasting, and prayer. And I do hereby request all the People to abstain on that day from their ordinary secular pursuits, and to unite, at their several places of public worship and their respective homes, in keeping the day holy to the Lord, and devoted to the humble discharge of the religious duties proper to that solemn occasion.
All this being done, in sincerity and truth, let us then rest humbly in the hope authorized by the Divine teachings, that the united cry of the Nation will be heard on high, and answered with blessings, no less than the pardon of our national sins, and the restoration of our now divided and suffering country, to its former happy condition of unity and peace.
In witness whereof, I have here unto set my hand, and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.
Done at the city of Washington this thirtieth day of March, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and of the Independence of the United States the eighty-seventy
By the President:
ABRAHAM LINCOLN