President's Day

President Barack Obama praying (pictured).

Today is President's Day and many government offices and agencies, and businesses are off today in observance of this holiday. This was a holiday break I had prepared for, as we have an entire bulletin board display up in the library at my school with an informational list of all U.S. Presidents, with additional information about our current President, Barack Obama.

As an intercessor I have learned many things about prayer, and something I learned about many years ago was to pray for our leaders. A leader is the person who guides a family, an organization, a business or a government. All leaders need to be held up in prayer because all of their decisions impact everyone that they lead.

Leaders need to have a number of quality characteristics to be good leaders. This characteristic should include intelligence, honesty, integrity, wisdom, charity, kindness, motivation, and vision. In our society today it seems like greed and the thirst for more power and fame are the main characteristics of many of our leaders. I think of the governor of South Carolina, and senator John Edwards, and the two recently former mayors of Detroit, Michigan, and Baltimore, Maryland, just to name a few. I do not think these people realize how deeply their selfless and foolish actions have hurt the people that they were elected to serve and to guide.

Serve. What an interesting term. To serve means to protect, to work for, to help and assist. This is the one idea, the one character trait that I think many elected officials have totally forgotten. As Congress fights over universal health care (as it has done since the Clinton administration) how many people in the U.S. have died due to poor medical treatment, or no medical treatment at all? Why is medical care so expensive? Why do so many citizens have to choose between getting their medicine or eating? The list of issues and questions goes on and on, and the leadership of this country many times creates even more problems than it solves.

It seems like our elected officials, the most educated and usually the wealthiest citizens in this country, cannot seem to serve the people of this country very well. Why? Is it because the Republicans hate the Democrats? Is it because for the first time in U.S. history we have an African American president? Or, is it much more simplistic than all of those reasons? Could it be a simple matter of greed? Think for a moment. Focus on the problems we have, not the personalities, or the politics, or the media, but the real problems, and many times it is only truly one issue, the lack of proper resources to get the job done right. Another word for resources is money. The leaders of our country are responsible for using our resources to best serve us. Do they do that? I will allow you to ponder that question.

The most important thing for us to do is pray for our leaders, be well informed about all the issues, and become experts about the issues that impact us directly. Finally, we need to be politically active and do so in wisdom. The most important thing is that we vote for individuals and the issues and be well informed when we do. We should not vote based on emotions but on true facts. I know it is very hard to know what the truth is, but if we seek it, pray about it, we will know what it is.

If you want to know more about the importance of leadership and service, the BIble is the best place to look. In Mark 9:35 Jesus sets the example, "Sitting down, Jesus called the Twelve and said, 'If anyone wants to be first, he must be the very last, and the servant of all.' If the leaders of this world followed the teachings of Jesus, we would be living in a very different (and better) world today.

Enjoy the day and remember to pray for out president and all of our leaders. Take care!