Daily Verse | Song of Solomon 8:4

Daughters of Jerusalem, I charge you:
Do not arouse or awaken love
until it so desires.

Friday and the end of another week in Joe Biden’s America. I hope green peppers are going out of style.

Every day I get caught up on the news and there’s so much crazy going on that it’s hard to focus on just one thing. Should it be Resident Biden and his moronic attempt to sound intelligent during a CNN town hall? How about Nancy Pelosi’s decision to cut two conservative Republicans from her January 6 investigative commission, leading Kevin McCarthy to pull all five of his nominations from the joke of a commission? What about Hunter Biden’s new passion for selling his “art” for half-a-million bucks a pop to unknown buyers who want access to the White House? Or his father’s secret email account used during his time as Obama’s VP? Then there’s the release of terrorists from Guantánamo Bay so that — maybe — there’s room for all the white supremacist terrorists the government will arrest? What about the invasion of more than a million illegal aliens across our southern border — with the current administration not only refusing to enforce our laws, but actually helping illegals get settled across the country? Or how about Fauci’s lying to Congress?

All good topics, but how about this one: Pastor Joe Wright’s powerful prayer 25 years later.

Twenty-five years ago, a courageous, concerned pastor from Kansas stood up and shared a powerful prayer before the opening session of the Kansas House of Representatives. Pastor Joe Wright obviously loved freedom, understood its importance and the necessity of repentance God calls for in order for Him to heal our nation.

Pastor Joe didn’t mince words and didn’t pull any punches. Here’s what he prayed.

“Heavenly Father, we come before you today to ask your forgiveness and to seek your direction and guidance. We know Your Word says: ‘Woe to those who call evil good,’ but that is exactly what we have done.

We have lost our spiritual equilibrium and inverted our values.
We have worshipped other gods and called it multi-culturalism.
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 and called it choice.
We have shot abortionists and called it justifiable.
We have neglected to discipline our children and called it building esteem.
We have abused power and called it political savvy.
We have coveted our neighbors’ 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 fore-fathers and called it enlightenment.

“Search us, Oh GOD, and know our hearts today; cleanse us from every sin and set us free.

“Amen.”

Several legislators walked out while he was praying.

Everything he prayed that day is still relevant today; if anything, the situation has only gotten worse. But what I like about Pastor Joe Wright is that he stood up in a room of the most powerful politicians in Kansas and told the truth. He wasn’t concerned about being invited to the best dinner parties or making sure he had friends in high places. He humbly stood and recited the ways in which his state (and our nation) was sinning.

It reminds me of when Mother Teresa of Calcutta spoke at the National Prayer Breakfast about the violence of abortion. She was honest and blunt, even though president Bill Clinton and vice president Al Gore were both there with their wives.

Then the sister said something that made everyone very uncomfortable: “But I feel that the greatest destroyer of peace today is abortion, because Jesus said, ‘If you receive a little child, you receive me.’ So every abortion is the denial of receiving Jesus, the neglect of receiving Jesus.”

Here’s the point of sharing these two accounts: both shared inconvenient truths, but neither Pastor Joe nor Mother Teresa cared what anybody thought of them. They didn’t care.

For am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God? Or am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ. (Galatians 1:10)

We need to be more like Pastor Joe and Mother Teresa, speaking the truth without fear. It will become more and more important as the culture goes to hell around us.

Have a good weekend.