The Praying Nation

"Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord..."(Psalm 33:12).

A Praying Nation is a Powerful Nation

A praying nation has confidence and assurance that is unparalleled among the world’s community of states. Often misunderstood as arrogance, this power is proven divine by her generosity and humility toward the rest of the world. Her power does not rest in her armies or in her military hardware. Her power is not measured by her economic accomplishments or her technological advances. Her power rests in her people, their sincere, authentic prayers, and in the One to whom she prays.

In quiet confidence and assurance, her hidden strength is in an all-powerful God who they serve with godly fear. They have to understand their ways may not be His ways, their ideas may not be His. They have lived long enough to experience life apart from His will. Now they have learned. Prayer with humble hearts and open minds is the key that will preserve their nation in an atmosphere of growth, opportunity, and fulfillment.God will bless and protect a broken, repentant nation. Of course, a nation is the sum of the people who make up that nation. Indeed, without its people, there is no nation at all. When the people are repentant, the nation is repentant. When her people fear God, the nation fears God. It matters not who in leadership believes or does not believe. God wants us to believe and He will, without question, take care of the rest. Those who pray bring about change. Those who listen to Him will be engaged in the process of change from within. This is the secret of a nation’s power. There is no question about it. A repentant and praying nation is a powerful nation.

A Praying Nation is a Secure Nation

Angels hover over a praying nation because of her praying people. They protect her and watch over her children. They are alert and attentive to all her enemies, ready in a moment to protect her from all harm.The nation that prays has a security that cannot be matched in the universe. There are no armies, no strategies, no plans that can overpower the strength of a praying nation. For her wisdom is born from above, and the courage to carry out that wisdom comes from above.Her edge is her faith in an unseen realm where God alone rules and the affairs of humankind are dictated by a force born of human faith, and heavenly resolve. A praying nation causes Heaven itself to shatter time and space, replacing the vile and the hideous with the purposes of God.

King David ruled over a praying nation. The very existence of that people depended solely upon the relationship between that nation and the God who covered and protected it. King David’s Psalm 121 tells us of the understanding and trust he discovered as he prayed to his Lord in the most brutal of circumstances:

I will lift up my eyes to the hills—from whence comes my help? My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth. He will not allow your foot to be moved; He who keeps you will not slumber. Behold, He who keeps Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep. The Lord is your keeper; the Lord is your shade at your right hand. The sun shall not strike you by day, nor the moon by night. The Lord shall preserve you from all evil; He shall preserve your soul. The Lord shall preserve your going out and your coming in from this time forth, and even forevermore.

A Praying Nation is a Loving Nation

Because a praying nation is loving, she is by nature compassionate and patient. Never mistake her patience and love for weakness, for it is her love that causes her to hope for the impossible and believe the best when there is no basis for it. A bear loves her cubs but is neither weak nor indecisive when it comes to a threat to her off-spring. Her love will protect at any cost.So it is with God and any nation whose people pray. Love causes nations to lay aside the differences with others in the face of human disaster and misery. A loving nation clothes and feeds even her enemies in times of distress. She opposes cruelty and injustice even when it is brought to her foes.

A loving nation exercises patience in all things and does not allow her anger to be kindled easily. But do not mistake her anger for fear, for she is aware of the troubles of the world. She will hope until life itself is threatened, before rising in holy anger and righteous indignation.

A loving nation responds to the needs around her. She cannot turn a deaf ear or a blind eye to suffering of any kind. A praying nation is a loving nation.

A Praying Nation Is a Holy Nation

The praying people of a nation understand that their holy words to a holy God are not separate from their unholy actions. They walk softly before their Lord, with reverence, circumspectly allowing the Holy Spirit to search out motives, desires, and lusts. They understand that their primary responsibility is to their own heart, their own actions, hidden desires, and points of thought that run contrary to their Lord. They personally live in broken repentance before their Lord.

Her life is one of quiet repentance, daily confessing her faults as individual citizens and as a nation. She cries to God for mercy and forgiveness, fully confident that whoever repents of sin to the Lord is forgiven. This confessed, corporate sin is summarily cast into the sea of forgetfulness, never to torment the nation again with its blazing guilt and haunting memory.

A praying nation knows that God loves her. She knows His hand is stretched out to her in loving strength and comfort. Her weakness keeps her humble and her love keeps her at His breast in relentless prayer for strength to overcome the sin that seems to befall her so easily.She is all too aware of her humanity. Her strength is in knowing her weakness; her humility is visible in the cry to the Lord for His strength; her future is in His mercy; her power is in her prayer. A praying nation is a holy nation.

How blessed are the people who live this way! How blessed are the people whose God is the Lord! “Happy are the people who are in such a state; happy are the people whose God is the Lord!” (Psalm 144:15).

The praying nation lives in softness and openness to her Lord. She does not presume upon His kindness or demand His attention. A holy nation knows precisely her place in the grand scheme of things and has no desire to change places with Him.