Earlier this week, I was driving through downtown Philadelphia.  Part of my ride took me through a section where my boy-hood memories were awoken.  Lest I bore my readers with those sentiments, I will simply mention that as I returned home, there was a great sense of heaviness upon my heart.  I went to my room and kind of flopped on my bed.  As I did, there came a prayer, or more like a lamentation as I said to myself, God and anyone else who would be interested, "What has happened to my country?  This is my country, the country that I love!"
    Deep in the American soul there is a knowing that things are different.  This was more than a momentary swoon of nostalgia - NO!  These were the heartfelt feelings of a native born citizen who sees what is happening, the danger these things present to his personal freedoms, as well as his children's and grandchildren.  As I let my heart go out to God, I came to a passage:

        Ah sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a seed of evildoers, children that deal corruptly! they have forsaken Jehovah, they have despised the Holy One of Israel, they are estranged and gone backward. 

    Isa 1:5 Why will ye be still stricken, that ye revolt more and more? the whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint. 
    Isa 1:6 From the sole of the foot even unto the head there is no soundness in it; but wounds, and bruises, and fresh stripes: they have not been closed, neither bound up, neither mollified with oil. 
    Isa 1:7 Your country is desolate; your cities are burned with fire; your land, strangers devour it in your presence, and it is desolate, as overthrown by strangers. 

    As I read the words of this ancient prophet, I felt as if I were reading the front page of any morning paper from any major U.S. city!  Without getting into the theological things here, because frankly, I was not thinking about theology as I was weeping in my room for my nation.  But was thinking about heart issues, things that touch our everyday lives.
        There are times when I am with my 11 year old son, or my 12 year old daughter.  I attempt to show them some of the things that I enjoyed as a boy growing up in the City of Brotherly Love, the Cradle of Independence.  I am broken many times as I take them places, only to find that they have been neglected, vandalized, or simply no longer exist.
        The writer mentions sickness from head to foot, and pictures the nations resources being consumed and devoured by aliens in their midst.  That these very aliens would one day rise up with their enemies to help bring about their fall and destruction.  For years the prophets warned Israel about making agreements with aliens, that it would turn on them.  But, because of greed they ignored the warnings, and as always, when God warns - what He says comes to pass.

        Today, our nation is ill - and I am not getting on a soap-box and preaching, wagging a self-righteous finger.  The prophet speaks of "no soundness from head (that's leadership) to foot (that's the rest of the body). no soundness.  Our nation is suffering, being crippled by and just might be brought down by the continual partisan hatred that is being upheld and pushed by the extreme entities on both sides.  Unless, as our forefathers did, we can come up and lay differences behind, find area's of compromise and begin to accept each other as American's, our days are numbered.  The truth is, 'A house divided against itself, cannot stand!"  There needs to be a separation of powers for checks and balances, but what is going on now is juvenile. and is causing us to be a laughing stock to our enemies.  They are watching and laying in wait.  It was in a season just as this when we were hit on 9-11.  Do we need to experience our past against to learn our lesson?  Singing "God Bless America" on the steps of the Capital is a nice gesture, but it wears shallow as we watch the treatment given to each other.  That same spirit of indifference flows right down through the nation.  We are on the brink of civil war, and when it breaks out, I wounder what the millions of aliens in our midst will do?  I wonder what the sleeper cells in our cities will do?  As we bicker back and forth over things that happened in 2001 and further back, they are plotting and planning something "more spectacular for sometime soon.
        And so, I weep!  Weep for my country!  Weep for my nation!  Weep for our soldiers!  Weep for my children!  If you're a true American, you too, will weep as you consider these things.  Can I exhort you to join my in a prayer for our nation?  The writers of the New Testament exhorted their followers to pray for their leaders, many of whom were not living under democratic governments.

                "Heavenly Father,  we thank you for blessing us with our nation.  We humbly ask your forgiveness for our constant bickering.  We all have our opinions and positions on these matters, but we have to accept that we all are Americans.  Without that unity in our midst, we are in danger.  Our enemies will and can exploit this weakness to divide and conquer.  We ask for your assistance in this matter.

            Thank you!

            Amen.

Charles Robert Zierle