PASTOR'S PERSPECTIVES: PRAYER OFFERS SOLUTIONS TO MORAL, SPIRITUAL PROBLEMS

The Rev. Joel H. Sarrault is pastor of Eisleben Lutheran Church in Scott City. He is a 1988 graduate of Concordia Seminary in St. Louis. He serves on the board of Lutheran Family and Children Services and the advisory council of Parents as Teachers.

Have you ever read the daily paper or listened to the radio or TV news and become depressingly convinced that our nation is headed in a downward slide morally and spiritually?

I am an eternal optimist by faith but I must admit that even I have feared for our national future and for the future of my children when I continue to hear of shootings in our schools, new levels of immorality flaunted by the networks, social acceptance of lifestyles that were considered sinful only a generation ago, a multibillion dollar national appetite for pornography and a degrading list that goes on and on, yadda, yadda, yadda.

So what to do? Withdraw from society? No, that's too impractical and I hate packing. Whine and complain to anyone who will listen to me about the moral decay of our society? No, plenty of people make their living doing that and it doesn't seem to be changing anything. Ignore it and hope it will "just get better" on its own? No, unfortunately I'm afraid that will work as well as the time I ignored that red "oil" light in my car's dashboard for one day too long (ouch, very expensive ignorance). Start a personal witchhunt to ferret out the individuals who seem to support these immoralities? No, then I become just another segment of society consumed by hate and motivated be sectarian self-righteousness (and the track record for that Salem fiasco and the McCarthy thing isn't very enduring).

Try this. Prayer. I know, you were hoping for something with much more flare and a bigger budget. But believe me, and the millions who have tried it before me, prayer has tremendous power to change the stoniest hearts, the vilest lives and it has the ability to calm your personal unrest.

Thursday, May 7, is our annual National Day of Prayer. National Days of Prayer have been observed in the United States since our beginning. NDP was formally established by Congress in 1952 and signed by President Truman. In 1988 the NDP was set aside by the House, Senate and President Reagan as the first Thursday of every May. Whether your observance is private or public; at your kitchen table, congregation, school or office I encourage you to lift up your concerns to one who listens and to the only one who is truly capable of responding. Pray to God for our families, government and leaders, moral compass, churches and culture. We miss the mark when we miss praying. As the late Oswald Chambers said, "Prayer does not equip us for greater works -- Prayer is the greater work." Our heavenly father is always eager to hear from his people. Even if we have wandered and mocked him still he yearns for us to call on him in repentance. He promises to hear us and to answer us.

National Day of Prayer is our nation's opportunity to repent and to seek wisdom and guidance. It is a challenge for an arrogant, world power -- to admit that as a nation we have failed in many areas and we seek forgiveness and help from one who is greater than we ourselves. As President Abraham Lincoln said when he urged the nation to pray for its unity, "I have been driven many times upon my knees by the overwhelming conviction that I had nowhere else to go. My own wisdom, and that of all about me, seemed insufficient for that day."

Pray, America, pray!