National Day of Prayer service Thursday

Submitted information

This Thursday, May 4, has been designated as this year’s 66th annual National Day of Prayer. This year’s theme is “For Your Great Name’s Sake: Hear Us … Forgive Us … Heal Us…” taken from Daniel 9:19. Across America, people are gathering to seek the face of God on behalf the nation and world, focusing on businesses, churches, families, government, media, military, and schools.

The National Day of Prayer event is orchestrated by the National Day of Prayer Task Force, made up of over 40,000 volunteers across the United States with more than 35,000 prayer gatherings.

As a national event, the National Day of Prayer was started on April 17, 1952, by President Harry Truman signing the bill into law. President Ronald Reagan designated the first Thursday of May as the official National Day of Prayer in 1988. Every year, the President issues a proclamation designating the National Day of Prayer on the first Thursday of May.

The world is in crisis on many fronts: Isis, North Korea, Russia, China, and Iran. It seems that at any time the world could fall apart. From the very beginning, America has faced many attacks and challenges from the outside and inside, but God has always been there for Americans, as we sought His mercy and grace. The nation is facing external and internal threats only God can save it from. Social unrest, moral struggles, and epidemic drug addictions are every day front page articles.

Ohio has become number one in the nation for heroin and drug overdoses. Local residents talk about economic growth but don’t have enough people who can pass a drug test to fill the needs of existing businesses. Even small communities are being overwhelmed by the drug epidemic. It seems, sometimes weekly, we lose way too many young men and women to the useless tragedy of overdose and suicide, leaving behind lost children wondering what happened to their dads or moms.

There are schools struggling to do their best to educate children coming from alcohol and drug addicted homes. One in three homes and families in America is directly being affected by alcohol and drug addiction today. Families are in crisis.

Politicians promise change for the better but America only receives empty promises and no real change; politicians are more concerned about being re-elected. The national media is more concerned about promoting its own agenda than reporting the news. Because of years of reduction and neglect the military is inadequate to deal with the possible upcoming multiple global confrontations.

Many churches are more concerned about their corporate comfort than the hurting, needy, and broken people outside their four walls.

Churches are in desperate need of revival. Prayer doesn’t change God but changes the hearts of His people. 2 Chronicles 7: 14 states that if God’s people will humble themselves and pray, and seek His face and turn from their wicked ways, then He will hear from heaven and will forgive their sins and heal their land. Those who have a heart for America should gathering to lift the seven pillars of society in prayer at Van Wert County Courthouse on Thursday, May 4, at noon.

For more information, contact Pastor Paul Hamrick, local director of National Day of Prayer, at 419.771.9378 or email 771hope@gmail.com.