Pray for...

I was actually going to title this post Pray for our Country, but I just couldn't bring myself to do it, for fear people would just glance over it and not care because they have heard it before.  Most that know me, know that I am not ultra patriotic or anything like that.  In fact, I've never really been a huge supporter of any organization other than my church, so talking about praying for the country is something different for me.

When I say pray for our country, I don't really mean the organization as much as I do the people.  There is so much corruption in the running of the government its almost hard to be proud of it.  However, today as I sit listening to the radio (talk radio is the only thing that comes in where I work) it makes me wonder what the truth really is.  Think about it, every candidate has their own version of the truth; I know for a fact the government does stuff we don't know about, and in reality most Americans are really not informed about what is actually going on in our government.  It is a scary situation to be in.

So, what do I really mean when I say pray for our country?  I mean pray for the people in it, just like you would the people of the church.  Realize the people of the country are what make the country, not the land we actually live on.  Without faith in God I don't know how anyone could not live in fear.  Terrible things are happening to kids everyday, people are expressing their selfish desires more and more, and corruption is being exposed left and right.  This is a scary place to live if you think about it.  The only thing that can keep us sain is our faith in God.

I wonder what God thinks of our country.  I wonder how much pain He deals with every day seeing the pain we put each other in.

Today when I ask you to pray for our country, I want you to pray for the people.  Really pray for the people.  It has been said that when you pray for someone it is hard to hate them or want anything bad to happen to them.  I would also venture to say that if you are really praying for someone it would be hard not to desire to show them God's love. 

I would venture to say that most of what we deal with in our society would be changed if we began showing love and grace to each other and if the church (as a whole) would begin to facilitate that change.  If we began introducing God to people in our actions rather than forcing Him on them, people would be more than willing to accept our actions as loving rather than some religious duty.  Jesus didn't force himself on anyone. 

Where is the church being the church to the people of our society?  So many are just isolating themselves and trying to bring people into their building for a service rather than going out and being where the people are...Jesus was constantly going to people and getting to know them and showing them His desire to have a relationship with them.

Aren't we called to be a follower of Christ?  Aren't we called to strive to be more like Him? 

Christian? ....maybe Disciple of Christ should be what we strive for.