Stormie Omartian - Powerful Prayers for Troubled Times: Praying for the Country We Love

STORMIE
OMARTIAN

HARVEST HOUSE PUBLISHERS

EUGENE, OREGON

All Scripture quotations are taken from the New King James Version. Copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Cover by Koechel Peterson & Associates, Minneapolis, Minnesota

Cover photo Hemera / Thinkstock

Back cover author photo Michael Gomez Photography

POWERFUL PRAYERS FOR TROUBLED TIMES
Formerly titled The Power of a Praying Nation
Copyright 2002, 2011 by Stormie Omartian
Published by Harvest House Publishers
Eugene, Oregon 97402
www.harvesthousepublishers.com

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Omartian, Stormie.

Powerful prayers for troubled times / Stormie Omartian.

p. cm.

Rev. ed. of: The power of a praying nation.
ISBN 978-0-7369-3922-5 (pbk.)
ISBN 978-0-7369-4202-7 (eBook)

1. x Christianity. 2. Christianity and international affairs. 3. Christianity and politicsUnited States. I. Omartian, Stormie. Power of a praying nation. II. Title.

BV227.O53 2011

248.32dc22

2011008916

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any meanselectronic, mechanical, digital, photocopy, recording, or any otherexcept for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior permission of the publisher.

Printed in the United States of America

11 12 13 14 15 16 17 / BP-SK / 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

This book is dedicated to the many men and
women who gave their lives in defense of Americas
freedom, or who were in the line of fire when
the enemy attacked, or were killed trying to save
the lives of others. In gratitude for their supreme
sacrifice, I pray Gods peace, comfort, and blessing
upon the family members and loved ones they
left behind. May God fill that empty place in
their lives with His healing and restoring love.

With special thanks:

To Pastor Jack Hayford and Pastor Rice Broocks for teaching me how to not only pray for our nation, but for all the nations of the world.

To my husband, Michael, for encouraging me to write this book.

To Susan Martinez for being the best secretary, assistant, prayer partner, sister, and friend, and feeling the stress of deadlines as much as I do.

To Roz Thompson for being a loyal friend, prayer partner, encourager, and supporter, especially during the writing of this project.

To my Harvest House family, especially Bob Hawkins Jr., LaRae Weikert, Kim Moore, Terry Glaspey, Betty Fletcher, and John Constance, for your hard work and unwavering support.

To Stephen McDowell and Mark Beliles from the Providence Foundation for all your work in preserving the true greatness of our nations history in your book Americas Providential History. If everyone were to read this work, there could be no doubt that our country was founded, established, built, and made strong by men and women of prayer who followed after God. May it inspire us as a nation to continue in that tradition.

Give heed to the voice of my cry,
my King and my God, for to You I will pray
For You are not a God who takes pleasure
in wickedness, nor shall evil dwell with You
But let all those rejoice who put their trust in You;
Let them ever shout for joy, because You defend them.
P SALM 5:2,4,11

O ur lives changed on September 11, 2001. Of all the many horrific aspects of that tragic day, it seems that the moment the first World Trade Center building fell, something fell in our hearts as well. It was the end of an era. The illusion of safety we had enjoyed for years was gone, as well as our apathy. The things in life we thought could never fall did. And something fell in us too. But in many of us, something was also awakened.

The thousands of lives destroyed that day were not soldiers on a battlefield. They were civilians who had said goodbye to their loved ones that morning, never dreaming it would be for the last time. They were fathers and mothers, husbands and wives, sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles, cousins, grandparents, and friends who would never come home again. Numbers of children were left without a father or mother. Mothers and fathers were without the son or daughter they had sacrificed their lives to raise. Family members, loved ones, valued acquaintances, coworkers, employers, employees, business partners and associates were now forever bereft of the people who gave their lives meaning. We wondered, If this could happen to them, could something like this happen to us too someday when we least expect it?

This national disaster affected all of us in some terrible way. We mourned with those who mourned, wept with those who wept, and extended ourselves to do whatever we could to help, but it never seemed enough in the face of such unimaginable tragedy. The loss was too great. The destruction too massive.

Immediately afterward, prayer suddenly became the right thing to do. God was invited back into our public gathering places. This not only awakened new fear; it also awakened new faith. People saw that they couldnt handle life without God after all. There were many gut-wrenching questions about why this had happened, and people looked to God for the answers. They found prayer was an answer that had been forgotten for too long.

If God keeps our tears in a bottle, as the psalmist says (Psalm 56:8), then heaven must have been flooded in the aftermath of that morning. Our flow of combined tears became a mighty river of unity that we had not known before in this country. It flowed out to others, even to strangers on the streets. And it flowed back to us in the outpouring of love and compassion from people all over the world who shared our grief.

We who saw these events on television or in person will never be the same. We witnessed the unimaginable. We were exposed to incomprehensible evil. We watched thousands of people disintegrate in front of our eyes. We may have gone back about our business because we had to, but it will never be business as usual again. We look at each other differently now. With new eyes of appreciation. With new eyes of suspicion. We may have resumed our lives, but our minds contain the knowledge that something bad could happen at any time. Weve gone back to building for tomorrow, but we cant be certain what tomorrow will bring.

Anyone who doubted the existence of evil cant deny it any longer. Theyve seen it in action. Even the pictures of ground zero, with the endless smoke rising over mass destruction, resembled what hell must surely look like. Satan had left his imprint. His destructive design for our lives was revealed in the rubble, in the ashes of lives that are no more.

Have we cried our last tear over this horrible event in our nations history? Have we gotten to the point where we can see our flag or hear our national anthem and forget all it meant and symbolized for us in the days following September 11? I hope not. Will we take for granted the freedom for which thousands of brave men and women have given their lives over the years? Will we again feel so secure that we think we dont have to look to God as a nation anymore? I pray not.

Even as our lives return to normal, it is a new normal that is changing every day. There is constant concern in our country about one thing after another, and two entirely different worldviews are at odds. The world seems to be spinning out of control. There are wars and rumors of wars, nations rising against nations and kingdom against kingdom, earthquakes, famines, troubles, sorrows, persecutions, andwhere have we heard all this before? Oh, wait, I remember. In the thirteenth chapter of the Gospel of Mark in the Bible. God tells us that all of these things are coming, but what He instructs us to do is watch and pray (Mark 13:33).