This land is your land, this land is my land....

This land is your land, this land is my land....

If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land.
2 Chronicles 7:14

Shortly after I converted to Christianity, I heard an an old Wisconsin Synod Lutheran preacher speak at my new church. The mans name was A.G. Dornfeld, he often spoke and ministered on the Holy Spirit. He also carried cases of fliers with him, One said, Righteousness exalts a nation, yet Sin is a reproach to any land. The other had the familiar verse about humbling ourselves, ceasing sin, and seeking God. Then he would heal our land. This seems to be the responsibility of those who call themselves Christian, yet somehow we like to put the responsibility on those who live outside what is considered Evangelical Christianity.

For some time now, this scripture has been pricking my thoughts and prayer life. Repent, turn from sin. All that bad stuff I enjoy yet hate to have others see. I haven't been in any fights or had a drunken spell lately so obviously He isn't talking to me. Yet I do hear this quiet little voice saying, “Be Nicer to that person” “don't be so harsh. Let me be reflected in your daily life.” It is a severe challenge. I do enjoy honking the horn at those who cut me off or turn in front of me. I am close enough to 300 pounds, yet I shake my head at the 500 pounders I see walking down the street. My problem, after all, started when I was just 5. Whats theirs? Have they no self control?

A year or two ago, my cousins daughter died a month after being beaten, apparently by her boyfriend. When I saw her last, she was a vivacious, rambunctious young lady getting ready to graduate from High School. She had a professional nursing career and family. Then somehow, Meth- amphetamine found a way to destroy her. This once lovely woman had lost herself to the drug, it destroyed her persona and her vivaciousness.

Last fall I called my nephew. We spoke for a few minutes, he began to choke up. One of the young ladies he had dated in High School had recently passed away, following weeks in an ICU after a heart attack. She was a young professional, a wife and mom who was afflicted with eating disorders as a teenager. Again, a lovely young woman who was a joy to be around. Drugs and alcohol robbed her kids of a mother, a husband of his mate.

This week a bus driver on the North Shore of Minnesota has been charged with assaulting four young girls, many of them pre- teens. Another young girl has been repeatedly molested by a man known to her family. Their innocence stolen at an early age. The list goes on and on.

My friends, the responsibility is ours to bring this nightmare to an end. The work isn't hard, yet it will be life changing. Sit in your chair, or on your bed, or kneeling at your pew, and listen to that still small voice, hearing how God wants to work in your life. Follow through on the very best that there is for us. When WE continually do that, we then can pray effectively for our nation. God will heal our land, restoring that which has been stolen, revitalizing our land. I believe that is our only hope.

So, in the past months, I have been checking my thoughts regularly, and asking to be more responsive than reactive. To be a mirror reflecting Gods love to others, even those I don't really care for. In return, I am making and growing many more friendships, and having a sense of the presence and Peace of God in a gentle and intimate way. I often fail, yet I try to get up walk again.

Please join me in prayer for our region. That our women and girls and boys would be protected from those who would abuse and hurt them. That stashes of drugs would be revealed and confiscated. That the dealers would be found out. It is Gods responsibility, and our only hope. Too many have had their lives stolen away, too many cannot face a normal day. Too many cry themselves to sleep because they have been betrayed by one who should have been trustworthy, but chose not to be.

For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. Ephesians 2:10