While searching for a particular prayer to share on this National Day of Prayer, I ran across an article that shared President Bush's 2005 Commemoration at the White House. Those were the good ole' days!
For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
May 5, 2005
President Commemorates National Day of Prayer at the White House
The East Room
9:26 A.M. EDT
THE PRESIDENT: Good morning, and welcome to the White House. Laura and I are honored to join you on this important occasion.
I want to thank Shirley Dobson, the chairman of the National Day of Prayer. Thank you for organizing this event and thank you for your wonderful comments. I'm glad to see you brought your husband, Jim, with you. (Laughter.) It's good to have Vonette Bright with us, welcome. I appreciate my fellow Texan, Max Lucado, for his wonderful prayer. Thank you very much; welcome. I'm glad you and Denalyn are with us. Rabbi, thank you for your reading of the psalm. It's good to have your family here; welcome. I appreciate Father Charles Pope, pastor of St. Thomas More Catholic Church, here in D.C. Kind of sounded more like a Baptist preacher to me. (Laughter and applause.)
Laura and I are proud Methodists and we're pleased to be here with Bishop Peter Weaver, who is the president of the Council of Methodist Bishops, who will deliver the closing prayer. Thank you.
It's such an honor to be here with the St. Olaf Choir led by Anton Armstrong. You've got such beautiful music, thank you for sharing with us. (Applause.) I'm sure they're having a prayerful moment right now -- (laughter) -- praying that I hurry up and finish because they have been standing for quite a while. (Laughter.)
The National Day of Prayer is an annual event established in 1952 by an Act of the United States Congress. Yet, this day is part of a broader tradition that reaches back to the beginnings of America. From the landing of the pilgrims at Plymouth Rock, to the launch of the American Revolution, the men and women who founded this nation in freedom relied on prayer to protect and preserve it.
Today, prayer continues to play an important part in the personal lives of many Americans. Every day, millions of us turn to the Almighty in reverence and humility. Every day, our churches and synagogues and mosques and temples are filled with men and women who pray to our Maker. And almost every day, I am given a special reminder of this great generosity of spirit when someone comes up and says, Mr. President, I'm praying for you.
Prayer has been an important part of American public life, as well. Many of our forefathers came to these shores seeking the freedom to worship. The first Continental Congress began by asking the Almighty for the wisdom that would enable them to settle things on the best and surest foundation. And when our Founders provided that sure foundation in the Declaration of Independence, they declared it a self-evident truth that our right to liberty comes from God.
And so we pray as a nation for three main reasons. We pray to give thanks for our freedom. Freedom is our birthright because the Creator wrote it into our common human nature. No government can ever take a gift from God away. And in our great country, among the freedoms we celebrate is the freedom to pray as you wish, or not at all. And when we offer thanks to our Creator for the gift of freedom, we acknowledge that it was meant for all men and women, and for all times.
Second, we pray for help in defending the gift of freedom from those who seek to destroy it. Washington prayed at Valley Forge. Franklin Roosevelt sent American troops off to liberate a continent with his D-Day prayer. Today, we pray for the troops who are defending our freedom against determined enemies around the globe. We seek God's blessing for the families they have left behind, and we commit to Heaven's care those brave men and women he has called home.
AUDIENCE: Amen.
THE PRESIDENT: Finally, we pray to acknowledge our dependence on the Almighty. Prayerful people understand the limits of human strength. We recognize that our plans are not always God's plans. Yet, we know that a God who created us for freedom is not indifferent to injustice or cruelty or evil. So we ask that our hearts may be aligned with His, and that we may be given the strength to do what is right and help those in need. We who ask for God's help for ourselves, have a particular obligation to care for the least of our brothers and sisters within our midst.
During the funeral for Abraham Lincoln, Bishop Matthew Simpson relayed a story about a minister who told our 16th President that he hoped the Lord was on his side. Lincoln wisely replied that he was more concerned that he was on the side of the Lord, because the Lord was always on the side of right.
Freedom is a divine gift that carries with it a tremendous human responsibility. The National Day of Prayer is a day that we ask that our nation, our leaders and our people use the freedom we have been given wisely. And so we pray as Americans have always prayed: with confidence in God's purpose, with hope for the future, and with the humility to ask God's help to do what is right.
Thank you for coming. May God bless. (Applause.)
END 9:32 A.M. EDT
*******
I'm glad that I copied it in its entirety. The original link to the transcript is gone.
One of my favorite prayers for this day has an unknown author. It is simply labeled, "The Prayer." Now, more than ever before, it is highly appropriate to pray this prayer IN THE NAME OF JESUS CHRIST because the current Resident ObamaFRAUD Admin. in the White House rejects prayer in the name of Jesus.
THE PRAYER
Heavenly Father, we come before you today to ask Your forgiveness and to seek Your direction and guidance. We know Your Word says, "Woe on those who call evil good," but that's exactly what we have done. We have lost our spiritual equilibrium and reversed our values.
We confess that:
We have ridiculed the absolute truth of Your Word and called it pluralism.
We have worshiped other gods and called it muliticulturism.
We have endorsed perversion and called it an alternative lifestyle.
We have exploited the poor and called it the lottery.
We have neglected the needy and called it self-preservation.
We have rewarded laziness and called it welfare.
We have killed our unborn children and called it a choice.
We have shot abortionaist and called it justifiable.
We have neglected to discipline our children and called it building self-esteem.
We have abused power and called it political savvy.
We have coveted our neighblr's possessions and called it ambition.
We have polluted the air with profanity and pornography and called it freedom of expression.
We have ridiculed the time-honored values of our forefathers and called it enlightenment.Search us. O God, and know our hearts today; cleanse us from every sin and set us free.
Guide and bless these men and women who have been sent to direct us to the center of Your will.
I ask it in the name of Your Son, the living Savior, Jesus Christ.
Amen.
For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
May 5, 2005
President Commemorates National Day of Prayer at the White House
The East Room
9:26 A.M. EDT
THE PRESIDENT: Good morning, and welcome to the White House. Laura and I are honored to join you on this important occasion.
I want to thank Shirley Dobson, the chairman of the National Day of Prayer. Thank you for organizing this event and thank you for your wonderful comments. I'm glad to see you brought your husband, Jim, with you. (Laughter.) It's good to have Vonette Bright with us, welcome. I appreciate my fellow Texan, Max Lucado, for his wonderful prayer. Thank you very much; welcome. I'm glad you and Denalyn are with us. Rabbi, thank you for your reading of the psalm. It's good to have your family here; welcome. I appreciate Father Charles Pope, pastor of St. Thomas More Catholic Church, here in D.C. Kind of sounded more like a Baptist preacher to me. (Laughter and applause.)
Laura and I are proud Methodists and we're pleased to be here with Bishop Peter Weaver, who is the president of the Council of Methodist Bishops, who will deliver the closing prayer. Thank you.
It's such an honor to be here with the St. Olaf Choir led by Anton Armstrong. You've got such beautiful music, thank you for sharing with us. (Applause.) I'm sure they're having a prayerful moment right now -- (laughter) -- praying that I hurry up and finish because they have been standing for quite a while. (Laughter.)
The National Day of Prayer is an annual event established in 1952 by an Act of the United States Congress. Yet, this day is part of a broader tradition that reaches back to the beginnings of America. From the landing of the pilgrims at Plymouth Rock, to the launch of the American Revolution, the men and women who founded this nation in freedom relied on prayer to protect and preserve it.
Today, prayer continues to play an important part in the personal lives of many Americans. Every day, millions of us turn to the Almighty in reverence and humility. Every day, our churches and synagogues and mosques and temples are filled with men and women who pray to our Maker. And almost every day, I am given a special reminder of this great generosity of spirit when someone comes up and says, Mr. President, I'm praying for you.
Prayer has been an important part of American public life, as well. Many of our forefathers came to these shores seeking the freedom to worship. The first Continental Congress began by asking the Almighty for the wisdom that would enable them to settle things on the best and surest foundation. And when our Founders provided that sure foundation in the Declaration of Independence, they declared it a self-evident truth that our right to liberty comes from God.
And so we pray as a nation for three main reasons. We pray to give thanks for our freedom. Freedom is our birthright because the Creator wrote it into our common human nature. No government can ever take a gift from God away. And in our great country, among the freedoms we celebrate is the freedom to pray as you wish, or not at all. And when we offer thanks to our Creator for the gift of freedom, we acknowledge that it was meant for all men and women, and for all times.
Second, we pray for help in defending the gift of freedom from those who seek to destroy it. Washington prayed at Valley Forge. Franklin Roosevelt sent American troops off to liberate a continent with his D-Day prayer. Today, we pray for the troops who are defending our freedom against determined enemies around the globe. We seek God's blessing for the families they have left behind, and we commit to Heaven's care those brave men and women he has called home.
AUDIENCE: Amen.
THE PRESIDENT: Finally, we pray to acknowledge our dependence on the Almighty. Prayerful people understand the limits of human strength. We recognize that our plans are not always God's plans. Yet, we know that a God who created us for freedom is not indifferent to injustice or cruelty or evil. So we ask that our hearts may be aligned with His, and that we may be given the strength to do what is right and help those in need. We who ask for God's help for ourselves, have a particular obligation to care for the least of our brothers and sisters within our midst.
During the funeral for Abraham Lincoln, Bishop Matthew Simpson relayed a story about a minister who told our 16th President that he hoped the Lord was on his side. Lincoln wisely replied that he was more concerned that he was on the side of the Lord, because the Lord was always on the side of right.
Freedom is a divine gift that carries with it a tremendous human responsibility. The National Day of Prayer is a day that we ask that our nation, our leaders and our people use the freedom we have been given wisely. And so we pray as Americans have always prayed: with confidence in God's purpose, with hope for the future, and with the humility to ask God's help to do what is right.
Thank you for coming. May God bless. (Applause.)
END 9:32 A.M. EDT
*******
I'm glad that I copied it in its entirety. The original link to the transcript is gone.
One of my favorite prayers for this day has an unknown author. It is simply labeled, "The Prayer." Now, more than ever before, it is highly appropriate to pray this prayer IN THE NAME OF JESUS CHRIST because the current Resident ObamaFRAUD Admin. in the White House rejects prayer in the name of Jesus.
THE PRAYER
Heavenly Father, we come before you today to ask Your forgiveness and to seek Your direction and guidance. We know Your Word says, "Woe on those who call evil good," but that's exactly what we have done. We have lost our spiritual equilibrium and reversed our values.
We confess that:
We have ridiculed the absolute truth of Your Word and called it pluralism.
We have worshiped other gods and called it muliticulturism.
We have endorsed perversion and called it an alternative lifestyle.
We have exploited the poor and called it the lottery.
We have neglected the needy and called it self-preservation.
We have rewarded laziness and called it welfare.
We have killed our unborn children and called it a choice.
We have shot abortionaist and called it justifiable.
We have neglected to discipline our children and called it building self-esteem.
We have abused power and called it political savvy.
We have coveted our neighblr's possessions and called it ambition.
We have polluted the air with profanity and pornography and called it freedom of expression.
We have ridiculed the time-honored values of our forefathers and called it enlightenment.Search us. O God, and know our hearts today; cleanse us from every sin and set us free.
Guide and bless these men and women who have been sent to direct us to the center of Your will.
I ask it in the name of Your Son, the living Savior, Jesus Christ.
Amen.
You Are Mine - Third Day
Current poll results from Focus on the Family's website:
ReplyDeleteMay 7th is the National Day of Prayer. Will you join us in prayer on Thursday?
Yes 4%
No 97%
I don't know. 1%
Total Votes 25870
"Be careful not to do your 'acts of righteousness' before men, to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven.
ReplyDelete..."And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full.
But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.
And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words.
Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him." Matt 6:1, 6:5~8 (NIV)
It seems that Christians (at least, the other kind) will do anything for their faith except live it.
Ken -
ReplyDeleteI guess you missed the disclaimer that states it isn't a "scientific poll."
Attention:
This poll is not scientific and reflects the opinions of only those Internet users who have chosen to participate. The results cannot be assumed to represent the opinions of Internet users in general, nor the public as a whole.It would seem that many haters who love to attack the organization of Focus on the Family sent people to vote "no."
Yep..."no" for the no-brains crowd.
Typical...
GM -
ReplyDeleteYou do realize...don't you?...that within that verse - when Jesus was speaking of:
"...do not keep on babbling like pagans"... He was speaking about people like you...right?
Christine,
ReplyDeleteInteresting how you noticed the disclaimer on this poll but never seem to take it into account when posting results from some anti-Obama poll from WingNutDaily. All the polls are skewed. That's my point.
So come on. Answer GMpilot's point (for a change). Wait, let me guess. You have some "context" to provide. When you don't agree with something in your holy book, just keep looking because eventually you'll find something that says the exact opposite. Why do the passages you like always trump the ones you don't?
Ken,
ReplyDeleteWhat you may not know about GMPilot is that such a question has been asked (by him) and answered (by me) several times over the past 4 years or so. He's just throwing out those verses to make it seem like I am not following what Jesus has told Christians to do regarding prayer. It's the usual game that he likes to play - a ploy that doesn't work - it comes to Bible knowledge.
I suspect that your intention is the same. You don't really want to know the truth. You just think (like GM) that putting a Bible verse in a comment somehow negates what my original post is about.
Tell you what. Go over to the Blue Letter Bible, type in that verse and then look up the commentaries on it. Then you will get the context (that you seem to only want to mock). I'm not going to do the work for you.
If you come back with the right answer, I will give you a star!!
Run along now....
Christine:
ReplyDeleteYou do realize...don't you?...that within that verse - when Jesus was speaking of:
"...when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen."...He was speaking to people like you...right?
Prayer is supposedly a personal matter between you and your God. Why should you want to air your business all over the web "to be seen by men"?
GM,
ReplyDeleteSo...what is it about the term National Day of Prayer that you don't understand?
People congregate all the time to pray together.
I give you the same assignment that I gave to Ken.
Now run along...
"So...what is it about the term National Day of Prayer that you don't understand?
ReplyDeletePeople congregate all the time to pray together."Yes, they do. All across the Nation.
In their churches, in their synagogues, in their temples, and in their homes. Those who feel they have to do it in stadiums or on the Internet want to do that 'be[ing] seen by men' thing.
Funny how you don't seem to mind the government sticking its nose into this!
If this was, say, Iran, where the government TELLS people where and when to pray, you be the first one blogging about how TOTALITARIAN it was...oh well.
See ya next time, Teach!
GM,
ReplyDelete"If this was, say, Iran, where the government TELLS people where and when to pray,"
True, but also irrelevant as it has nothing to do with the matter at hand. If you were a resident of Iran, you would likely be dead or imprisoned in a fairly short period of time. Likewise if you were in atheist controlled countries. That, or you would be desperately fleeing to the Christian nations where freedom, while waning, is still relatively high.
She isn't asking the government to impose anything. She is expressing her opinion of what a member of the government is not doing. As for your comments and scriptures, a review of the text shows that God has always held leaders who claim to worship him to a higher standard.
As for me, it really doesn't bother me about Obama and the day of prayer. Considering his actions in the other areas of his life, I would be suspicious if he made too big a deal of it. Personally, I don't think that he is a Christian, though that's opinion. I'm content to let God sort that out. I don't think he has any religion except government, preferably with him at the head of it.
The 'matter at hand', Mr. Baker, is that our hostess is crying in her tea over the 'good ole' days'--namely 2005, when GWBush gloried in his days as 'war President' and certain public figures of a religious bent fawned upon him because they believed him to be one of their own.
ReplyDeleteI didn't say Christine was asking the government to impose anything; in fact she seems to be annoyed that the 'Resident ObamaFRAUD Admin. in the White House' has anything to do with Christian prayer at all.
You said "As for your comments and scriptures, a review of the text shows that God has always held leaders who claim to worship him to a higher standard."The operative word there is "claim". Since you claim you're content to let God sort out whether Obama is a Christian or not, you might wish to convey that sentiment to our hostess. With each passing week her circle of who is a True Christian© and who isn't appears to get ever smaller.
You've been to an 'atheist-controlled' country, then, or one where the theologians hold power? Such places are extremely rare; what did you think of them?
Although signed into law by Truman in 1952, the Day wasn't officially established until 21 years ago, in Reagan's time. Even then, the "tradition" of a public commemoration only began under GWBush, less than a decade ago.The National Day of Prayer is just another day. To the faithful, it should be every day--or so I was told when I was younger.
What Obama did not do is invite all those religious leaders to the WH, as Bush had done. I think that's what has their knickers twisted.
Quite a few past presidents have not attended the services, and since Obama is pro-choice on abortion, he probably wouldn't have been allowed to speak there anyway. As Christine might say, big whoop.
I hope you had fun, and I trust your God is pleased with what he got. But it hasn't bothered me for the past 26 years, and it didn't yesterday. I remain an unbeliever.
It was interesting to learn that a Catholic bishop went up to the podium at the prayer breakfast and blasted Obama for his horrific pro-death to unborn babies views and policies.
ReplyDeletePerhaps he knew that might happen - being that many of the attendees are staunch pro-life advocates.
It's funny. Obama would sit through a Daniel Ortega fire-breathing downright nasty scolding lecture about how bad America is, but when it comes to his own scolding he hides like a wimp.
Typical of the narcissistic America hater. Resident Obama is not my president. I will never recognize him as such. I know too much about his lies, fraud and deception.
I just wonder when Obama is going to be charged with treason. Could he put our military in more danger after being willing to release terrorists from Gitmo?
Awful!
Obama -
One
Big
A**
Mistake
America