Esther 4:14 “For if thou altogether holdest thy peace at this time, then shall there enlargement and deliverance arise to the Jews from another place; but thou and thy father’s house shall be destroyed: and who knoweth whether thou art come to the kingdom for such a time as this?”
My new book “Prayers for a Nation: A 90-Day Devotional Guide for American Christians” is available at:
Please see the following from the Introduction:
As a seventeen-year-old in Cambridge, Massachusetts, I joined the Air Force Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) through the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. It was there that I took my first oath of office to support and defend the Constitution of the United States. I happened to do so alongside a particularly attractive cadet who has now been my wife for over twenty-six years. That oath didn’t have an expiration date, a contingency clause, fine print, nor opt-out provisions. I meant it for a lifetime.
I served our great nation for over twenty-eight years as a fighter pilot, a test pilot, and a general in the United States Air Force. It has been my life’s purpose to maximize my impact on people and our great nation.
I accepted Christ as my Savior at age thirty-two. I was a young dad, an overwhelmed officer, and a confused seeker as I desperately desired to know the truth about God. Despite amazing preaching and superb discipleship, I was trapped in a spiritual wrestling match between pride and conviction. Fortunately, I heard the testimony of a young lady in a Sunday evening church service who shared her own spiritual struggle. At a time when she could have let pride win out, she yielded to conviction instead – acknowledging that she hadn’t been the born again Christian that others believed her to be, but had just that week trusted Christ as her personal Savior.
Her humble step of faith in sharing that testimony broke the standoff in my soul, and I surrendered to the Lord, likewise acknowledging that growing up in church and having extensive Bible knowledge did not make me a Christian. I put my faith in Jesus Christ alone as my personal Savior, and that decision changed my life.
Immediately after being saved, my life’s purpose gained new meaning. I no longer only wanted to maximize my impact on people and our great nation, but I now wanted to maximize my impact on people and our great nation for the Lord.
As I served in local churches, through which the Lord blessed our family during our frequent military moves, I grew increasingly concerned about the errant direction of the United States of America.
During my annual time of prayer, assessment, and goal setting at the end of 2012, I came to a shocking revelation about myself. Although I had a robust daily prayer life, loved my country, and had served in the military for my entire adult life, I had not been regularly praying for my nation. For those many years, it was as if I thought that I could make more of a difference for the United States through my career than through my prayers. Nothing could be further from the truth.
So, in January 2013, I began to pray specifically and regularly for the United States of America. I prayed for national revival. I prayed for our leaders. I prayed for God to work in and through our country in the ways that only a sovereign God can.
As I prayed, I found my burden for the United States intensified. God has enabled me to continue to invest daily in this way for the last eleven years. And these few minutes of daily prayer have only furthered a heart-felt, Christ-ordained burden.
As an outflow of my new commitment to pray for our nation, I began a ministry which I titled Prayer at Lunchtime for the United States, or PLUS for short. This ministry was designed to be a modern version of the 1857 prayer meeting revival that started in New York City, sweeping the nation and beyond. It was a call for Christians to exercise their citizenship responsibilities to pray for our nation and our leaders, and to specifically pray that the Lord would change our national heart so that he could change our national direction.
To that end, I began a blog-style website (prayatlunch.us) where I began writing and posting regular devotions, each ending with a specific call to prayer for our nation. My goal was to encourage the many other American Christians who, like me, love our country dearly and are deeply concerned with our national direction, but who have failed to fully uphold our nation and her leaders in prayer.
The devotions in this book are curated and lightly edited from those previously-published posts on the PLUS website. I pray that this devotional assists in guiding you to pray regularly and fervently for the United States. Prayer is the least we should do, and it is the most we can do to make an impact to help wrestle our great nation back to where we belong.
As American Christians at this point in our history, we are, like Esther of old, placed when and where we are “. . . for such a time as this” (Esther 4:14). For this moment. For now. We are given the opportunity and must seize the moment before it is too late. We must pray.
As you progress through this devotional, I hope your burden will grow and your prayers will become more fervent, more targeted, and more regular.
The five sections are designed to guide the reader through this spiritual journey toward a more robust version of Christian citizenship. The first section focuses on our national drift away from the Lord and the desperate need for revival. The second section targets the need for timely and urgent action to wrestle our nation back to where we belong. The third section highlights the necessity of a Christian citizenship characterized by trust and courage. The fourth section punctuates the prayers needed for leaders and about leadership. And the fifth section emphasizes the key spiritual and practical elements of our national foundation.
It is my firm desire to see a widespread revival in the United States of America. I pray that it would have its epicenter in your heart, your family, your church and your community, and that it would gloriously radiate out across our great nation and beyond. That is what we need for such a time as this!
We can’t wait. We need it now, and we must faithfully and fervently pray for it!
PLEASE PRAY FAITHFULLY AND FERVENTLY FOR THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA! It is the least we should do and the most we can do to make an impact on our nation!
