If My People…

I recently ran across a speech President Ronald Reagan gave in 1982 on what a gift  it is to call the United States of America home.
It hard to believe that this speech is over 40 years old, yet how it is still relevant and timely for today.

“I’ve always believed that we were put here for a reason, that there is a path, somehow, a divine plan for all of us and for each one of us.
And I’ve also always believed that America was set apart in a special way, that it was put here between the oceans to be found by a certain kind of people,
based on a quality that these people had in that they came from every corner of the world. And a country then was created by men and women who came not
for gold but mainly in search of God. They would be free people, living under the law, with faith in their Maker and in their future.”

“It’s been written that the most sublime figure in American history was George Washington on his knees in the snow at Valley Forge.
He personified a people who knew that it was not enough to depend on their own courage and goodness,
that they must also seek help from God — their Father and preserver.”

“Where did we begin to lose sight of that noble beginning, of our conviction that standards of right and wrong do exist and must be lived up to?
Do we really think that we can have it both ways, that God will protect us in a time of crisis even as we turn away from him in our day-to-day life?

It’s time to realize, that we need God more than He needs us.”

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 I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land.

2 Chronicles 7:14 (NIV)

KURT