The National Day of Prayer

Floor Speech

Mr. Speaker, last week as I traveled my State, over and over again people encouraged me with a simple statement, ``I pray for you.''

Those powerful words pack a tremendous amount of compassion and theology. It is the belief of millions of Americans that there is a God who created us, He cares for us, and He is interested in our lives. It is the belief that if we pray, a loving God hears our prayer and He responds to our needs and the needs of others.

This is the week of the National Day of Prayer. This is a time for us to be able to reflect on prayer and to remember and recognize the Americans who value prayer. I share the belief with many others that people are separated from God because of our choices to walk away from God and God's path for our lives, so people live their lives alone, even in a crowd. The Bible says, in Romans 6:23:

The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus, our Lord.

Simply put, what we earn for what we do wrong is separation from life, real life. God gives us the opportunity to have eternal life, life with God forever, by accepting the gift of Jesus Christ through his death and his resurrection.

It was my first real prayer. When I was 8 years old, I realized for the first time that there is a God and I did not know Him. I was separated from Him. At my home, I prayed for Jesus to forgive my sin and come into my life and take control. It is that same simple prayer that millions of others have prayed to begin a walk with God.

The Bible teaches us--and I believe--that God hears our prayer, not because of our good behavior, but because God opened the line of communication when Jesus paid for our sin on the cross, and I accepted His offer of forgiveness and a relationship.

It begs the question still: Does it matter if we pray and pray for each other? Yes is the simple answer. Prayer puts our hearts and thoughts back in line with God's design. Prayer allows us an opportunity to spread out our most painful problems before a loving God. Prayer also provides an opportunity for the God who can do anything to demonstrate His care and power in a world that thinks they do not need God.

This attitude is not new. President Lincoln in his proclamation for a National Day of Prayer on March 30, 1863, wrote this:

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 us 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.

The National Day of Prayer is not a mandate to pray. It is not a congressional establishment of religion. It is two things: a congressional acknowledgment that millions of people in our Nation believe in God, and they believe that God hears our prayers and responds when we pray; and a request that those who believe in prayer should pray, and pray for our Nation and pray for our Nation's leaders.

If you are considering calling my office to complain that I mentioned prayer and God on the House floor, you are always welcome to call, but you are not going to change my mind, and you are not going to change our Nation. Each day we begin with prayer in the House of Representatives. The words of our national motto, ``In God We Trust,'' are emblazoned on the wall right over my right shoulder. There is a prayer chapel in the Capitol set aside for Members of Congress to stop and pray before votes. We have always had prayer as a nation. That is the free exercise of religion that is protected by the Constitution.

I am well aware that some people want people of faith to be silent and never speak about God in public. They condemn my insensitivity for their lack of belief by trying to require a fellow free American to live life more like them. But I would remind them that they are not required to believe in God because they are an American, and I am not required to stop believing in God just because I represent Americans. We are both free. You can choose not to pray, and I can choose to pray for you.

For those in our Nation that pray, I humbly request that you set aside this National Day of Prayer to renew your commitment to pray for our Nation. We need God's help in our Nation right now. We are in obvious trouble and conflict. Even many Christians that I meet would rather complain than pray.

For everyone who says to me we are too far gone in debt, our culture is past the tipping point, we have lost our way forever, I tell them that I believe there is still a God in Heaven who hears our prayer, who cares about our lives. I will work, but I will also pray, and I ask you to join me.

Let's pray.

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