Abraham Lincoln

It seems I have been hearing many ties to Abraham Lincoln these last few days. The concert at the Lincoln Memorial, Obama using Lincoln's Bible, and of course the historic nature of an African American becoming president and what would Lincoln think of that? Today I received an email that had many resources for worship in it, and there he was again: Abraham Lincoln
At first I thought it would be somehow tied to the mood of the country and the events of the past week, but it is actually a resource for Ash Wednesday and speaks to our need to repent - I find some of the similarities to our culture 140 years later, eerily interesting. We have indeed been preserved in peace and prosperity and and that we think our blessings are produced by some wisdom of our own...

We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of heaven. We have been preserved, the 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 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 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.

April 30, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln's Proclamation for a National Day of Fasting, Humiliation and Prayer

In these days of change, whether it is in our nation's capital or in our homes, in our culture or in our families - there is always the call to remember God...remember how we got here, remember where our hope lies and to humble ourselves and pray.

God who created all,
We find many reasons to lose hope, and we search for the places and people we can put our hope in...forgive us for forgetting you are the one true hope that is present for all of creation. Our hope is in your grace - that meets us exactly where we are and carries us onward until we turn away again. Our hope is in your steadfastness, that you are unchanging in a world that changes every second.
Be with our leaders - old and new - we pray you will work in them in ways that are powerful and will turn hearts to your truth. Be at work in all of us, that we may be a part of the kingdom to come - to your glory and honor and not our own. Amen