Oh!
I have been forgetting our task of examining the prayers of protagonists.
In I Samuel, Chapter 11, we find Saul beginning to behave like a king – he
found a way to subdue the Ammonites. The record of his reaction to the Spirit of God which came upon him is
interesting – his anger was kindled greatly. Scientifically, we would say
we might be angry with the error, not with the people. Is this where the
powers that be these days go wrong? Us included? Anyway, the people
were satisfied that he was a likely king.
“The
people”, “the people”…so prominent in the Bible.
Chapter
12 finds Samuel trying to bring out some gratitude in the people’s idea of
God’s working in their behalf, through him, through Moses, through Jacob. Even
when the people forgot the Lord, he rescued them through Jerubbaal, Bedan,
Jephthah, and Samuel. He tells them they must be obedient; then the
king-thing might work.
Oh
Ho! Samuel asked God to send thunder and rain. And he did. This
is so interesting! This morning in a JSH search (http://jsh.christianscience.com/), I
found that General Patton once called for a chaplain to pray for fine weather….
From The Blaze http://www.theblaze.com/contributions/pattons-prayer-for-fair-weather-and-the-turn-of-world-war-ii/
In
early December 1944, Gen.
George Patton’s Third Army was poised for the breakthrough
across the Rhine River, a formidable natural obstacle to the invasion of
Germany by the western allies. The date for the attack was set for Dec.
19 but foul weather threatened to postpone the attack.
At 11 a.m. on the morning of Dec. 8, Patton phoned the Head
Chaplain of the Third Army, James H. O’Neill, a Catholic priest.
“This is General Patton; do you have a good prayer for weather?
We must do something about those rains if we are to win the war.”
The
taciturn O’Neill told Patton that he would research the topic and report back
to him within an hour. After hanging up the receiver, O’Neill looked out at the
immoderate rains, which had plagued the
Third Army’s operations for the past three months. As he searched through his
prayer books, he could find no formal prayers pertaining to weather so he
composed an original
prayer, which he typed on a note card:
Almighty
and most merciful Father, we humbly beseech Thee, of Thy great goodness, to
restrain these immoderate rains with which we have had to contend. Grant us
fair weather for Battle. Graciously hearken to us as soldiers who call upon
Thee that, armed with Thy power, we may advance from victory to victory, and
crush the oppression and wickedness of our enemies and establish Thy justice
among men and nations.
O’Neill threw on his trench coat and crossed the quadrangle of
the old French military barracks then serving as the Third Army’s headquarters
and reported to Patton’s office. Patton read the prayer, returned it to O’Neill
and directed him to “have 250,000 copies printed and see to it that every man
in the Third Army gets one.” (http://www.generalpatton.com/prayer/index.html)
The
prayer was answered and General Patton awarded Chaplain O’Neill with the Bronze
Star Medal. Here is Chaplain O’Neill’s stirring version of the story - http://www.pattonhq.com/prayer.html.
Samuel
didn’t give up on the people. He knew that that would be sin. “I will
teach you the good and the right way” (I Sam 12:23). But they had to
serve the Lord with all their hearts and be grateful for the great things He
has done for them.
Final
warning however in the last verse: “But if ye shall still do wickedly, ye shall
be consumed, both ye and your king.”
Joyce Voysey
No comments:
Post a Comment