Men of Faith: Vision

Abraham Lincoln

A few years ago, I listened to the Audible recording of the book, Abraham Lincoln: The Prairie Years and The War Years by Carl Sandburg, which was 44 hours long! As I continued to ponder on this honorable man’s life, I was impressed with all the challenges and heartaches he lived through with such endurance. I know he was a man of sincere faith in God and was blessed with a great vision for peace and unity. Below is one of President Lincoln’s proclamations that was signed on March 30, 1863, when he asked the country for a national day of fasting and prayer:

We Have Forgotten God

It is the duty of nations as well as of men to own their dependence upon the overruling power of God, and 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 Holy Scripture, and proven by all history, that those nations only are blessed whose God is the Lord. 

And, insomuch (sic) as we know that by His divine law nations, like individuals, are subjected to punishments and chastisement 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 has 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. 

From 1863 to our present day in 2021, not much seems to have changed since Lincoln’s time. With the passing of 158 turbulent years, our country could still be described with his words, “Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient….” 

While we cannot change our country all at once, we can live and teach the principles of humility and gratitude to God among our own families, friends, and associates. Hopefully by our examples and teachings, we can help people in our communities, country, and even the whole world to embrace Abraham Lincoln’s ideals. His vision of peace and unity, along with his fervent proclamation to turn our hearts to God once again, can still be realized.