Please Wake Up

My brother slept so soundly in his teenage years my mother had to buy him a special alarm clock. Extra big, bold red lettering. Extra loud. Extra everything. He just couldn’t seem to wake up without extra help. America is not a teenager as far as I know, yet today I was reminded yet again that our nation needs extra big, bold, and loud wake up calls to get moving. Living in the Nation’s Capital region, I along with numerous others awoke at 5 a.m. to the thunderous sound of the largest earthquake recorded in this area since 1974. Groggily, I wondered if it was a horrible thunderstorm, a massive truck driving by, or something terrible. It never crossed my mind it was an earthquake until hours later when a friend told me the news. My response? When I got off the phone I prayed.
And prayed. I prayed for our nation. I prayed prayers of repentance. I stood in the gap for our nation and asked the Lord to forgive us for a long list of sins. Violence. Rape. Murder. Gluttony. Lust. Sexual addiction. Addictions. On and on I prayed. And throughout the day I thanked God in my heart for His mercy, that the earthquake did no damage. I also thought of my pastor’s wife, who flew to Haiti today to join my pastor in serving a nation in dire need following their phenomenal earthquake. She does not see her husband for 50% of their lives because she ministers to the broken in inner city Savannah while he minister to the hungry and dying in third-world Haiti. And America? I did not speak to one human being anywhere I went today who mentioned God when it came to the earthquake. I did not hear one grateful word spoken for how He spared us. Nor did I hear one person share about our nation’s need for repentance. Nehemiah in the Bible stood in the gap for his ancestry to help a nation. In another point in the Bible, God said if He could only find one single person to stand in the gap for a nation in intercessory prayer. When people hear an alarm clock go off, they do one of several things. They hit the snooze button. They go back to sleep and do not wake up until it is too late. Or, they rise up and begin their day. Over and over in the Bible, people are told to “rise up and walk”. Which one are you? Do you need a special alarm clock, or will you join the laborers the Lord has called to the harvest to help our nation in need? Please wake up.