National Day of Prayer

We have just passed the world Day of Prayer which we were to celebrate quietly
in our hearts. It is ironic that it was inaugurated by that great emancipator
President A. Lincoln who called for a day of prayer. His words are great reminders
to a nation run amuck—

“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 the 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.” Abraham Lincoln

If Lincoln’s words were appropriate in March 1863 how much more are they appropriate in May 2009?