Vol. 1 - No. 4 

April, 1982

A Soldier's Prayer

by R. L. (Bob) Craig

 For about five years I have worked in an area adjacent to the largest military installation in the United States, Fort Hood. I have come in contact with all kinds of military people: some members of the Lord's church, some devoted members of some man-made religion, some good men but nothing religiously, many who are complete reprobates.

I was impressed a few days ago when a young man came into my printing establishment, late in the afternoon just as I was trying to close, with an urgent need for Xerox copies. We engaged in conversation and I found out that he was in an area closely akin to the Chaplain Corps. It had to do with psychology and psychiatry. He was to make an appearance before a large number of military men the following morning and wanted to pass out copies of his outline and some of his basic material. He was going to deal with the broad subject of "Authority," and he was approaching it from several different standpoints. It looked good so I kept copies of his material for myself.

Later, as I looked it over more thoroughly, I was greatly impressed with the prayer he was going to introduce his speech with and which he had titled, "Obedience to God." The reason I was so impressed was that most of these people have little or no conviction, but are just holding a position and compromising with everyone to get along. But this young man's subject centered around God and His authority first of all and that was the gist of the prayer, I am reproducing it here with the desire that it might be used in impressing others concerning the importance of looking, first, to God, in all things.

"Heavenly Father, I thank You for our country, our Constitution, and our leaders. I pray for our president and for every elected and appointed official who serves with him. I pray that You will build a wall of protection around the marriage and family of every national, state, and local official. I pray that You will give them the wisdom and the courage to uphold our Constitution which established a republic based on Your absolute laws; not a democracy based on the changing whims of human reasoning. I pray You will rebuke Satan for the deception of his lie that we can be "as gods" in deciding for ourselves what is right and what is wrong. O Lord, may our leaders cast down every law, policy, and personal example which weakens marriages, families, or Your moral standards. I pray that our leaders will understand and follow the principles of Your word. May they realize that all authority comes from You,, not the voters, and that one day they will stand before You to give an account of the power You gave to them. I base this prayer on the promise of Your word, that if I will humble myself, pray, seek Your face, and turn from my wicked ways, then You will hear from heaven, forgive my sin, and heal my land. In the name and through the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ I pray."

Good, isn't it? Especially in view of the position this young man occupies, more or less an intellectual in the midst of a bunch of compromisers, and addressing himself to a group of hard-core militarists. I wished him well in his endeavors.

It would be good for US to pray a similar prayer every day of our lives. Of course, this is not all we would want to talk with God about, but this ought to be included every day. After all, remember the ending of the prayer:

"If I will humble myself You will hear from heaven and heal my land." Do we really believe that? So, if we sincerely pray, then God will hear and, also, it would be good just for us to remember that God is still on his throne.