Prayer and the presidency should always go together

Last weekend President Donald Trump made an unannounced visit to Mclean Bible Church, a nondenominational megachurch in Northern Virginian. The Sunday service followed the Virginia Beach mass shooting and was also previously designated — unrelatedly — as a day of prayer for the president and other government leaders.

Upon Trump’s arrival, well-known pastor David Platt agreed to bring the president on stage for prayer.

It was a stirring invocation, centered around 1 Timothy 2 which calls on believers to pray for those in authority. Platt closed with the following:

“Please, O God, give him wisdom and help him to lead our country alongside other leaders,” Platt said with one hand holding his Bible and the other on the president’s shoulder. “We pray today for leaders in Congress. We pray for leaders in courts. We pray for leaders in national and state levels. Please, O God, help us to look to you, help us to trust in your Word, help us to seek your wisdom and live in ways that reflect your love and your grace, your righteousness and your justice. We pray for your blessings on our president toward that end.”

It was a powerful moment and a model example of what Christians should do daily: Pray for our leaders, Republicans and Democrats, that they would lead with wisdom and seek the Almighty’s direction.

Unfortunately, Platt caught flak for agreeing to pray for the president even though Trump did not speak on stage after the prayer. Later in the day Platt penned a letter to his church explaining why he agreed to pray for the president.

We should never have to explain why we would pray for the president — or anyone for that matter.

This week also memorialized the 75th anniversary of D-Day. On June 6, 1944 Allied troops stormed the beaches of Normandy, France to battle the Nazis in what is now considered a turning point in World War II.

Trump delivered an excellent speech at the memorial in France, one even praised by his critics.

The speech included personal stories of soldiers in attendance and those long gone. While specific in nature, the speech was a reminder of America’s leadership over the course of history, and, above all, it was a reminder we are a nation of faith in God.

“They battled, not for control and domination, but for liberty, democracy, and self-rule,” Trump said. “They pressed on for love and home and country, the main streets, the schoolyards, the churches and neighbors and families and communities that gave us men such as these. They were sustained by the confidence that America can do anything, because we are a noble nation, with a virtuous people, praying to a righteous God. The exceptional might came from a truly exceptional spirit. The abundance of courage came from an abundance of faith.

“The great deeds of an army came from the great depths of their love as they confronted their fate, the Americans and the Allies placed themselves into the palm of God’s hand.”

Faith was a central theme not only in President Trump’s D-Day speech but also those of previous Commanders in Chief.

On the 40th anniversary of D-Day, President Ronald Reagan spoke of the Divine Providence at hand and how those heroes in the fight relied on God.

“Something else helped the men of D-day: their rockhard belief that Providence would have a great hand in the events that would unfold here; that God was an ally in this great cause,” Reagan said. “And so, the night before the invasion, when Colonel Wolverton asked his parachute troops to kneel with him in prayer he told them: Do not bow your heads, but look up so you can see God and ask His blessing in what we’re about to do. Also that night, General Matthew Ridgway on his cot, listening in the darkness for the promise God made to Joshua: ‘I will not fail thee nor forsake thee.’”

One of the most memorable speeches came in the form of a prayer delivered over radio by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt on the evening of June 6, 1944.

“Many people have urged that I call the Nation into a single day of special prayer. But because the road is long and the desire is great, I ask that our people devote themselves in a continuance of prayer. As we rise to each new day, and again when each day is spent, let words of prayer be on our lips, invoking Thy help to our efforts.”

These are only a few snippets of three speeches. Take time to read the text of each in full.

Each is a reminder that prayer has been a central theme for many presidents, and likewise, we should continually lift up our elected leaders — local, state and national — in prayer.

Lucas Presson is assistant publisher of the Southeast Missourian.