You’ve received the texts. Now what?

You’ve received the texts (probably 20 per day, if you’re like me). You’ve encouraged your friends to vote. In fact, your friends can count on you to be something of a pest until they vote. You’ve waited for this day for years. You’re all in until the polls close on November 5, 2024.

That’s great. Keep it up.

But don’t stop there.

The real fight for the future of this country won’t happen at the ballot box: it will happen on your knees, pleading before the Almighty God who ordained this country that He would sustain it by His mighty hand.

Over the past four years, the Christian Right’s rhetoric about prayer has become surprisingly one-note: “Don’t just pray. Take action.”

I find that to be an incredibly reductive view of prayer. Frankly, it’s a reductive view of God.

First, let me clarify that I technically agree with the statement. According to the biblical definition, a man whose actions routinely fail to correspond with his words or prayers is a hypocrite. Therefore, when you pray, you should also take action. Don’t just pray for the hungry man on the street; feed him if you can.

However, my concern with the phrase “Don’t just pray; take action” is that how we use it has resulted in — or rationalized — an involved but powerless church.

“An involved but powerless church” probably sounds oxymoronic to many of you. That’s because we equate political activity with power. But that’s not what the Bible teaches.

The Bible teaches that we are most powerful when we recognize that we are weak and turn to the God without whom we are powerless. “I [Jesus] am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing” (John 15:5). “And he [the Lord] said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9). “The Lord is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart; and saveth such as be of a contrite [literally, crushed, pulverized] spirit” (Psalms 34:18).

Turning to God is not a passive, one-time act. It’s living life on our knees in humble submission and weakness before Him.

If we truly understood that we are nothing without Him, we would not be so foolish as to attempt to go more than 24 hours without communicating with Him. We certainly would not attempt to save our country without Him. As Benjamin Franklin observed at the 1787 Constitutional Convention:

“In this situation of this Assembly groping as it were in the dark to find political truth, and scarce able to distinguish it when presented to us, how has it happened, Sir, that we have not hitherto once thought of humbly applying to the Father of lights to illuminate our understandings? In the beginning of the contest with G. Britain, when we were sensible of danger we had daily prayer in this room for the Divine Protection. Our prayers, Sir, were heard, and they were graciously answered. All of us who were engaged in the struggle must have observed frequent instances of a Superintending providence in our favor.... And have we now forgotten that powerful friend? Or do we imagine that we no longer need His assistance?

I have lived, Sir, a long time, and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth — that God governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without his notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without his aid? We have been assured, Sir, in the sacred writings that "except the Lord build they labor in vain that build it." I firmly believe this; and I also believe that without his concurring aid, we shall succeed in this political building no better than the Builders of Babel.”

Seventy-six years later, Abraham Lincoln issued “Proclamation 97—Appointing a Day of National Humiliation, Fasting, and Prayer”:

“Whereas it is the duty of nations as well as of men to own their dependence upon the overruling power of God, to confess their sins and transgressions in humble sorrow, yet with assured hope that genuine repentance will lead to mercy and pardon, and to recognize the sublime truth, announced in the Holy Scriptures and proven by all history, that those nations only are blessed whose God is the Lord;

And, insomuch as we know that by His divine law nations, like individuals, are subjected to punishments and chastisements in this world, may we not justly fear that the awful calamity of civil war which now desolates the land may be but a punishment inflicted upon us for our presumptuous sins, to the needful end of our national reformation as a whole people? We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of Heaven; we have been preserved these many years in peace and prosperity; we have grown in numbers, wealth, and power as no other nation has ever grown. But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us, and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us.

It behooves us, then, to humble ourselves before the offended Power, to confess our national sins, and to pray for clemency and forgiveness.”

In times of national calamity and confusion, two of our nation’s greatest men turned to prayer for power and strength. Yes, they were politically active. Yes, they spoke out about the issues of the day. But, when human reason and logic failed, when man’s best efforts proved unprofitable, they weren’t afraid to take the fight to their knees. They weren’t afraid to “come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need” (Hebrews 4:16).

Farewell to shallow, obligatory, half-hearted, weak prayers. Farewell to barely squeezing out a perfunctory whisper to God because we are too busy with politics.

Election Day 2024 could be a watershed moment in our country’s history. But we are going to have to rise to the occasion in prayer.

The point is not that our prayers are powerful. The point is that they are powerful because of the God who hears them and answers according to His infinite wisdom — the God who “is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us” (Ephesians 3:20).

“For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds,” says the Apostle Paul (2 Corinthians 10:4). “The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much,” agrees James (5:16). “I exhort therefore, that, first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks, be made for all men; For kings, and for all that are in authority; that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty” (1 Timothy 2:1-2).

Prayer is not optional. It is not an added bonus. Prayer is the lifeblood of the church. We need prayer. A prayer-less church is a powerless church — no matter how “politically involved” it is. On the other hand, a church full of holy prayer warriors is, in Christ, an indomitable force for truth in the culture.

This, then, is my charge to people of faith in this country: with seven days left to go before the most important election of our lifetimes, let us unite on our knees in bold, unwavering prayer and fasting that God would pour out His mercy, revival, and spiritual transformation on this country, pull down strongholds of wickedness and sin, and heal our land. God alone can do it. It’s thrilling to imagine what might happen.

Of course, I am not discouraging anyone from “taking action.” “Duty is ours; results are God’s.” We each have a job to do, regardless of the outcome.

However, a part of that job — duty, heaven-ordained responsibility — is to “humbly [apply] to the Father of lights to illuminate our understandings” and “own [our] dependence upon the overruling power of God.”

If you really believe in the dead-raising, life-changing, miracle-working God of the Bible and if you really care about this country, it’s time to pray like it.

Don’t just take action. Pray.