How I’m Praying for the President

Note: Rush Limbaugh has been in the news lately stating that he hopes that President Obama fails. This sounds harsh. But let me remind you that Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reed said often that they hoped that the then President George W. Bush would fail. In fact, I remember clearly Harry Reed saying that we had lost the war in Iraq because he wasn’t in favor of it. Believe me, when Bush was president, not only did many in the media and in Washington say publicly that they wanted Bush to fail, but they did all they could to bring it about.

So what’s the big deal? Is it because President Obama is black? I remember Hillary one day screaming, that she was offended over the notion that it was unpatriotic to disagree with Bush. So when we have conservatives disagreeing with our present president, do the rules suddenly change?

When I was watching the Super Bowl on TV in January, I was hoping for Pittsburgh to fail. Remember that last touchdown pass in the final minute in the end zones, which gave the Steelers their win? I was hoping that the receiver was out of bound or that he would drop the ball. We all have such thoughts. Does this make us racists? Mean-spirited? Uncooperative?

Here’s an interesting article on this very subject. As Christians, we are to pray for our president. But what are we to pray for?

At the end of each of these articles that I send out from time to time, I will put at the bottom one question for you to think over and possibly to spark discussion among your friends or family members. Dialog is important and often times necessary to advance deeper into the issues at hand as well as to gain further insights. Enjoy!

How I’m Praying for the President
Paul Edwards
“The Paul Edwards Program,” WLQV Detroit

We should certainly pray for the president. We should pray for wisdom for him, for strength for him, for protection for him and his family. But where his plans clearly oppose righteousness, we should pray they fail. Where his plans clearly are intended to do harm to the people he leads, contrary to the oath he swore before God, God’s people should pray that those plans do not succeed.

Reasonable men are now beginning to question whether or not Barack Obama is intentionally acting to harm the interests of the American people. (See the American Enterprise Institute’s Kevin Hassett, and mainstream media pundit Howard Fineman). Can God’s people stand idle and allow their elected leader to undermine righteousness? To do so is to be complicit in the unrighteous deeds of our elected leader. We have an obligation to hold him to account, and Barack Obama is ultimately accountable to the Judge of all the earth.

During his first 50 days in office, President Obama has clearly acted in opposition to righteousness by lifting the ban on federal funding of embryonic stem cell research, reversing the Mexico City Policy which forces the use of your tax dollars to fund abortions at overseas abortion facilities, and by acting to rescind the “conscience clause” which protects doctors, nurses, pharmacists, and other medical personnel from participating in abortions against their personal, private convictions.

He has elevated science above God by appealing to science rather than to morality in deciding to sacrifice the lives of future generations of unborn children for the false promise of “cures” for the present generation.

His economic policy, which has been touted as a "stimulus," puts an unfair burden on future generations as they assume the responsibility for repaying the debt he is amassing, and unfairly takes the income from those who have worked hard to earn it and gives it, in some cases, to the slothful, a vice the word of God clearly says should not be rewarded.

His planned closure of the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay places the security of every American in jeopardy, as does his announced plans to negotiate with terrorist actors like Hamas and terror-sponsoring states like Iran.

His call for government-run day care for children as young as two years old removes children from the care and nurture of their parents and turns them over to the state, undermining parental authority, which is given by God.

We could go on (we haven’t even touched on Obama’s plans to destroy the institution of marriage and the family through his legitimizing homosexual practice, the lobbyists he has appointed to his administration after promising not to do so, the corruption of some of his cabinet members who knowingly evaded paying their taxes, and on and on).

Based on the policy positions alone, there is solid evidence that Barack Obama has made himself an enemy of God and the enemy of God’s people. God enjoins us to pray for our enemies, therefore we should pray for Barack Obama—but not that his plans succeed, but rather that they fail.

There is scriptural precedent for praying that the ungodly plans of God’s appointed leader fail. David repeatedly prayed that King Saul’s plans against him would fail.

Because President Obama has so clearly revealed an agenda that de-values the cause of life and has provided abundant evidence that his policies do not serve the cause of righteousness, I am encouraging all God-fearing followers of Jesus Christ to begin praying that God in his sovereign grace would hinder him and the agenda he has sought to advance with such breathtaking speed.

Will you join me?

Discussion Question: Is it right for Christians to hope that President Obama fails?