We have failed to love our neighbor who has a different color of skin and called it maintaining racial purity.
We have abused power and called it political savvy.
We have coveted our neighbor's possessions and called it ambition.
We have polluted the air with profanity and pornography and called it freedom of expression.
We have made the Lord's Day the biggest shopping and entertainment day of the week and called it free enterprise.
We have ridiculed the time-honored values of our parents and called it enlightenment.
Search us, O God, and know our hearts today. Try us and see if there be some wicked way in us, cleanse us of every sin and set us free. Though our sins be as scarlet, may they become white as snow. Though they be as crimson, may they be as wool.6
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A few months later I printed the prayer in my weekly column of The Lookout magazine. My friend Joe Wright, pastor at Central Christian Church in Wichita, Kansas, read the prayer and was moved by it. He was scheduled to deliver the opening prayer before the Kansas House of Representatives two months later. On January 23, 1996, Joe Wright stood before those legislators and prayed that prayer! You may have heard about the controversy his prayer stirred that day. It infuriated several legislators and one member even stormed out of the hall in protest. Several gave speeches critical of the prayer, and one even called it a "message of intolerance." Joe's staff stopped counting how many phone calls they received after the first 6,500! All but a small handful of the calls were supportive. Since then the church has been contacted by people from every state and many foreign countries asking for a copy of the prayer. I understand the chaplain coordinator in the Nebraska legislature read the prayer the following month and stirred up some more controversy there! Paul Harvey also reported on the controversy and read the prayer on the air. He has since repeated the story, claiming it is one of the most requested readings he has ever had. The prayer has been widely circulated by e-mail. One of our elders recently sent it to me and said, "You need to read this prayer — it's great!"
Joe Wright and I have joked often about the publicity he has received for the prayer I wrote. But that's okay with me — I didn't have to take all those hits! And he deserves credit for having the boldness to actually pray the prayer in front of the legislature! I'm thankful that so many Americans have resonated with that prayer. I hope we don't just read it but really pray it and genuinely repent before God.
A HISTORY OF PRAYER
One of the reasons the United States has been so blessed by God is that in times of trouble, leaders and citizens of this nation have always turned to prayer.
The pilgrims barely survived the first winter in the new land. They prayed that God would provide and they made it through. When the first harvest came, they set aside a special time to thank God for his blessings.