Pray Without Ceasing for Our Nation

The Bible tells us to pray for those in authority over us. It seems to me that most people interpret that to mean that we are to pray for God’s blessings on our current elected officials. While that is probably true to some extent, I believe that there are some important considerations that we sometimes overlook.

First, when God established this country, He gave us a brand new form of government. We began fresh with a government of elected officials who were put there to act within the framework of the Constitution and to serve the people. As soon as our independence was secured, we were able to move forward as a free people.

Second, our founding fathers recognized that if our elected officials were not serving the people and acting responsibly, we should throw them out and replace them with those who would. It is our responsibility to demand just, honest government, and when we do not get it, we need to replace those who are at fault.

Third, if we have corrupt elected officials it is our own fault. We can never say that there is nothing we can do about the mess that our government is in because we have chosen these people and given them permission to do make and enforce the laws that direct our lives.

Because of our particular system of government, I believe that we should begin to think differently about how we pray for those in authority over us. Today I am going to share with our readers how I pray daily for our nation.

When Jim DeMint announced in late December that he was leaving the Senate to become the new head of the Heritage Foundation, I began to pray for him by name. At the time of his announcement DeMint said that he was going to explore how best to “get the message out” to the American people. Therefore, each day when I pray for him I ask God to, first, show him what the message should be. Then I ask that God will show him how to get that message out. Next, I pray that DeMint will find the right candidates to promote—ones that will do exactly what God has put them there to do, no more and no less.

I then pray that God will give us the right candidates for 2014 for both houses of Congress—that He will raise up men and women of God who will be his “Daniels”. The Bible says that Daniel was “faithful and honest and made no mistakes” in the performing of his duties as one of three presidents who administered Darius’ kingdom. (Daniel 6:1-6) This is my prayer for these men and women of God—that they will look neither to the left nor to the right but only at God so that they will make no mistakes in the performing of their duties.

We will have honest, just government only when we demand it. It is God’s will that everyone be saved, but it is not His will that everyone should be allowed to serve in government. We should not pray for blessings on those who are godless. Instead we should pray that God will raise up men and women who will obey Him. We should pray that He will remove from office anyone who will not do what they were put there to do. And we should pray that our nation will become what He created it to be. Most of all, we need to understand that our nation will never reach its full potential until we choose to be governed by the godly.

Joyce Swann is a nationally-known author and speaker. Her own story of teaching her ten children from the first grade through master’s degrees before their seventeenth birthdays is retold in her book, Looking Backward: My Twenty-Five Years as a Homeschooling Mother. Her novel, The Warrior, about how one woman's prayers change the lives of those around her, is available on Kindle and in paperback. For more information visit her website at Frontier 2000 or like her on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/frontier2000mediagroup.

The Greatest Generation

On March 18, 2013, my step-father died on his ninety-first birthday. He was one of the few remaining veterans of World War II, and this fact was made even more significant because he had remained in the Air Force until his retirement in 1965.

Bill’s health had been declining for some time, but we did not believe that his death would come immediately. Therefore, when I had made plans to leave my home in El Paso, Texas, to travel to Southeastern Kansas to list the home where he and my mother had resided until they went into assisted living this past December, I had no idea that I would not only be preparing the house for sale and listing it, but I would be attending his funeral and taking care of all of the things that need to be done when a veteran dies.

My sister took a week off from her job and flew in to attend the funeral and help me prepare the house for sale. After the funeral, as the two of us went through my step-father’s personal effects, we discovered many little things about him that we had not known—nothing of importance, just those bits of trivia that contribute to all our lives.  For instance, I had always been puzzled about why Bill began his military career in the Navy and had then gone into the Air Force. As my sister and I went through the paperwork to determine which government departments we needed to notify, we discovered that the Air Force had originally been part of the Navy. He had already completed several years of military service before the two were separated and he became part of the Air Force. As we examined his birth certificate and marriage license and looked at the medals he had been awarded during the war, we came across something that truly amazed me. There among his personal effects was a small New Testament with gilded pages bound in red leather. The front page said that this New Testament was presented to all military personal upon entering military service.

I could not help but think about the contrast between the attitude of our government then and now. Now our military chaplains are not allowed to pray in the name of Jesus lest they “offend” someone. Then, our government not only armed its servicemen with guns, they armed them with the word of God with Jesus Christ at the center.

Tom Brokaw coined the phrase “the greatest generation” when speaking of our World War II generation, and we tend to think that they were great because they were brave and patriotic and hardworking. But were they really any more brave or patriotic or hardworking than today’s soldiers who have sacrificed so much in Iraq and Afghanistan? I don’t think so.

I think that the reason so many exceptional people came out of that World War II generation is that they had a connection with Jesus Christ that helped them overcome almost insurmountable odds. They fought for a nation whose government had not yet forgotten that God made this country great and if we are going to remain great we will keep Him at its center. They fought for a nation that sent its men into battle carrying a Bible as well as a gun. It was that willingness to recognize that we are, indeed, a nation under God that made this country and that generation great.

Joyce Swann is co-author of The Chosen, a dystopian novel about the battle of one U.S. family to restore the Constitution and stop the indefinite detention provisions of the National Defense Authorization Act.  For more information, visit her website at http://www.frontier2000.net

Welcome to Walmart

As our nation’s debt nears the 17 trillion dollar mark, I have begun working on a plan to get the spending under control and restore prosperity using a common-sense approach to government.  As a wife and the mother of ten children I know that when one is faced with the necessity of reigning in the spending, there is no better place to begin than at Walmart. The following are some of my recommendations for the federal government to follow to reign in their own spending. The list is not exhaustive, but I think it is a good start:

First, we should adopt the Walmart approach when making all federal government purchases. The federal government will set a price based on the fair market value that they will pay for each item, whether it is a transport plane or a paper clip. They will then publish that price and allow suppliers to apply to supply that particular item at the listed price. Suppliers will be chosen according to their ability to fulfill orders quickly and efficiently. Quality control checks will quickly detect substandard materials, and any supplier who does not meet the criteria of timeliness and quality will lose its contract effective immediately.

Next, all TSA employees will be replaced by senior citizens who will be trained by Walmart to function very much like Walmart greeters. This will save the taxpayers billions of dollars because we seniors will be willing to wear our own dockers, polo shirts, and tennis shoes that we purchase ourselves out of the money in our own bank accounts. The only “uniform” we will require will be the familiar Walmart vest with the word “Walmart” removed and the initials “TSA” added.

An additional benefit to having Walmart greeters staff the TSA is that we seniors have enough life experience to know that while the 92 year old woman in the wheelchair is almost certainly wearing Depends, she is not wearing a suicide bomber’s vest. We will, therefore, simply smile and allow her to pass without harassing her.

We also have the benefit of having been raised in a kinder gentler world where it is considered rude and unacceptable to grope a stranger’s body parts while he or she is attempting to pass from the metal detector to the boarding gate. No more stuffing of hands under the clothing of housewives while lines of would-be passengers look on to make certain that the wire the metal detector picked up really is the underwire in her bra.

My plan will also require that Sam’s Club, the big box store set up to allow small business owners to purchase various items at discounted prices, participate. Because I have lived on the Mexican border for virtually all of my adult life, I am well acquainted with the mindless inefficiency of the federal government in supplying work visas, student visas, and all sorts of other permissions that allow immigrants to be in this country legally. We who live in border towns are well aware of the dilemma of the Mexican people who are in this country legally but have never been issued a laminated card proving their legal status. Instead, they carry with them—sometimes for ten years or more—a grimy, frayed paper issued by our government that verifies their legal status while they wait to receive the much coveted laminated card.

As a long-time member of Sam’s Club, I can attest that when one applies for membership at Sam’s, they are able to complete your application, establish your eligibility, and issue a laminated card with your picture and membership number within minutes. I, therefore, strongly urge the feds to turn over all aspects of issuing these visas to Sam’s Club.

An added benefit of having Sam’s Club oversee this function is that they never lose track of their members. They send emails and hard copy catalogs to their members on a regular basis. They always know whether a membership is current, and whenever a member whose membership is coming up for renewal is shopping in a Sam’s Club, that information appears on the screen of the cash register the moment the card is swiped. The clerk then offers to renew that membership on the spot. A club that efficient will not experience the problem the federal government seems to have in keeping up with those who enter the country on visas and then simply “disappear” never to be found again.

Finally, I propose that we set up Bentonville, Arkansas, as our provisional capital. (Please note that the definition of a provisional capital is, “a town or city chosen as an interim base of operations due to some difficulty in retaining or establishing control of a different metropolitan area.) Since all training for all federal positions will, of necessity, be done at the Walmart headquarters, this only makes sense. Both houses of Congress will need to move their offices to Bentonville as well. In this environment they can be expected to make better decisions and to get their heads on straight.

In Bentonville the lavish and costly lifestyles of our elected officials, which we taxpayers are currently funding, will be replaced by activities such as clog dancing, AKA Irish step dancing, quilting, and fiddle playing. A special dinner out will consist of a bucket of KFC eaten at a picnic table in a local park. We can only hope that this will help them better connect with their constituents.

Washington will remain the "permanent capital" of the United States. This will allow tourists to go to the city to tour the White House and the various monuments and museums. While other elected officials will govern from Bentonville, the president will continue to live in the White House in D.C. He will be “under White House arrest” so to speak. He will not be allowed to leave the city limits unless he is on official federal government business, such as inspecting damage done by a natural disaster or traveling abroad on official business. No more golfing, shooting hoops, languishing on the beach, or stuffing his face with lobster at Martha’s Vineyard on the taxpayer’s dime. These rules will apply to all future presidents as well.

I believe that it is time to send a message to all our elected officials, and that message is, “Welcome to Walmart!”

Joyce Swann is co-author of The Chosen, a dystopian novel about the battle of one U.S. family to restore the Constitution and stop the indefinite detention provisions of the National Defense Authorization Act.  For more information, visit her website at http://www.frontier2000.net

YOU CAN’T HAVE ONE WITHOUT THE OTHER

I believe in the power of prayer. I believe it enough to spend a significant amount of time each day praying for various people I have never met, various people I have met, family members, political situations, etc. I believe that our futures depend on our willingness to seek God with all our hearts and to come before Him daily with our petitions.

To make my life more efficient I have organized my prayers into categories and set aside a special time for each category. For instance, while I drive to work each morning I pray for my family members. It is about a twenty-five minute commute, and I make it alone with no radio or music to distract me. I pray aloud—I am sure that the people in the other cars think that I am talking to myself, but I pay them no attention. I am completely focused on praying for each child by name and each in-law by name. I then pray for each grandchild by name. With a family as large as mine, that takes some time.

Each day I also pray for our nation. I pray for men and women of God to be elected to office, and I pray that they will be strong and do exactly what God put them there to do. I pray for Jim DeMint, the Senator from South Carolina who recently resigned his office in order to take over the presidency of the Heritage Foundation in April of this year. I pray that God will show him exactly what to do and how to do it. I pray that he will be bold and uncompromising.

In addition to praying for our nation’s political situation, I also pray for revival. At first I believed that it would be better to separate these two prayer categories so that I could pray for the political situation at one time of day and pray for revival at another. However, when attempting this I discovered that it is not possible to separate the two. As I have spent more and more time in prayer, I have become more and more convinced that without revival we can never improve our political situation.

As the result of hours of prayer for our nation, I have come to believe that none of the problems we face will ever be solved unless we become a nation of prayer warriors. A better economy, more jobs, lower gas prices, and safer schools are not going to exist unless we as a nation turn to Jesus Christ. And, the truth is, even if it were possible to bring about these changes without revival, we would simply be exchanging one godless system for another.

People frequently tell me that things are worse now than they have ever been in this country. They allege that we are more promiscuous, more drugged, more liberal and less patriotic than at any other time in history. I know that this is not true because I lived through the sixties. In fact, in August of 1969 when the three days of debauchery known as Woodstock occurred, I had just turned twenty-four. I was exactly the right age to buy into the notion that Woodstock was “three days of peace and music” but I didn’t. In spite of the endorsements of the most respected educators and medical professionals, I also didn’t buy into the propaganda that marijuana and LSD were “good” for you and would help you discover your inner self and find God. Likewise, I rejected the slogan of the day that proclaimed “God is Dead!” and I never thought for one minute that Jesus was actually a homosexual hippie who hung out with his posse and just wanted everyone to be free to live however they chose.

But something else happened in 1969 that changed this nation and the world. Revival broke out and burned across this country like a raging fire. Pictures of long-haired boys and girls wearing the unmistakable hippie fashions of the day, holding their hands above their heads and praising God began to pop up everywhere. These godless, misguided young people who had spent months—and sometimes years—taking drugs and having sex with whoever happened along suddenly began to find Jesus. Of course, not all of them stayed with their new-found faith, but many did. Those former hippies now make up a very large segment of Christians in America. They are now sixty something, but they still serve Jesus, and they know that the Gospel is true because they have experienced Grace and have known the presence of Jesus Christ in their lives.

If we had not had revival in the late sixties and early seventies, I do not believe that we would have survived as a nation. We were poised to fall when God sent His Holy Spirit to burn across this land and bring that generation of young people to His saving Grace. I have seen this with my own eyes, and I know that it is true.

If we are to survive the current attack on our liberty, we must turn from our sins and come to Him who alone can save us. We must have revival because you just can’t separate the two.

When you pray for your nation, remember to pray for revival. We cannot have just government unless we have godly men and women making the policies. Likewise, we will not elect godly men and women to public office unless we have a godly electorate. If you want to see this nation become that shining city on the hill, pray for it every day, and when you pray, remember to pray for revival.

Joyce Swann is a nationally-known author and speaker. Her own story of teaching her ten children from the first grade through master’s degrees before their seventeenth birthdays is retold in her book, Looking Backward: My Twenty-Five Years as a Homeschooling Mother. Her novel, The Warrior, about how one woman's prayers change the lives of those around her, is available on Kindle and in paperback. For more information visit her website at Frontier 2000 or like her on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/frontier2000mediagroup.

Paid in Advance

Although she has received many invitations from both of us, my ninety-one-year-old mother refuses to live near either my sister or me.  She is devoted to the tiny Kansas town where she was born and stubbornly refuses to leave.  Just before Thanksgiving this year it became necessary for her and my step-father to go into an assisted living facility; I foolishly thought that faced with that prospect she would agree for them to join me in El Paso, but, once again, she refused.

Fortunately, I have two very thoughtful and kind female cousins who visit her regularly and take her places. Recently, Mother told me that she did not know how she would ever be able to repay them for their kindness to her. She said that she had “thought and thought” but she could think of no way to repay them.

Finally, I said, “Mother, you can never repay them because life doesn’t work that way. When people are kind to us, we can never return that kindness in equal measure.” I then reminded her that when her mother was in her nineties, she visited her every day and made certain that all her needs were met.

“When Bonnie and Rene are your age,” I continued, “perhaps someone will visit them and do for them what they have done for you. That’s the only way they can ever be reimbursed for their kindness to you.”

In life we cannot pay it back, and we cannot pay it forward. We pay in advance, or we do not pay at all. This is my New Year’s message for 2013: When you are thinking about your New Year’s resolutions, why not forget about the promise to go on a diet or go to the gym? Those are good goals, but we all know that those kinds of resolutions are normally short-lived.  Why not resolve to treat those God puts in your path with genuine Christian love? They will never be able to pay you back, and most of them will never be able to pay it forward, but in meeting some of their needs you will be storing up a little treasure in heaven.

Perhaps one day when you need it most, God will send someone your way who will show you true Christian love, but even if that day never comes, you will be richer for having invested your time in someone who needs to be reminded that they are precious to God and precious to you.

Read Joyce's incredible new novel about the power of prayer and God's desire to redeem every life FREE on Kindle January 4th through January 9th.  Download here.

Joyce Swann is a nationally-known author and speaker. Her own story of teaching her ten children from the first grade through master’s degrees before their seventeenth birthdays is retold in her book, Looking Backward: My Twenty-Five Years as a Homeschooling Mother. Her novel, The Warrior, about how one woman's prayers change the lives of those around her, is available on Kindle and in paperback. For more information visit her website at Frontier 2000 or like her on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/frontier2000mediagroup.

This is the Story of Christmas

When I was a child, all television programs were in black and white and there were only three networks—ABC, NBC, and CBS. While this arrangement did not make for particularly exciting television viewing, it made for simple television viewing.  Saturday nights gave viewers a choice of watching either Lawrence Welk or Gunsmoke, and Saturday and Sunday afternoons were devoted to televised sports on all three networks.

Holidays were devoted to the airing of the same shows every year that had been made to celebrate the particular holiday at hand. When I was very young—five or six years old—Christmas programming consisted of a number of re-enactments of the birth of Christ played back to back. Every year it was the same thirty-minute programs so that even as a child I was able to recognize the various productions from year to year.

Each of these programs consisted of a badly scripted and equally badly acted retelling of Mary and Joseph finding shelter in the stable and the wise men and shepherds paying tribute to the newborn king. However, none of them attempted to tell the viewer why this message is important to modern day humans or how it impacts on our lives.

Apparently, not much has changed. This year churches everywhere will hold Christmas pageants in which children will play the parts, and the retelling of the events chronicled in the Bible will be faithfully retold. All Christians love the story, and we will be glad to be reminded of how God sent Jesus to be born in the most humble of circumstances to live among us.

I wonder, however, what impact these pageants would have on those who have never heard the Gospel. Would they leave knowing why this message is important and how it impacts on their lives? My guess is that as beautiful as the story of the birth of Christ is, those who do not know Jesus would not understand that to appreciate what happened at the birth of Jesus we must understand why He came in the first place.

Therefore, I submit to anyone reading this who may not understand the why and how of the birth of Christ, this is the story of Christmas: God sent His son to earth to live among us so that we could know Him and love Him and accept Him as our Savior. If anyone comes to Jesus, He forgives him of his sins and gives him an abundant life here on earth and eternal life with God in Heaven. The Christmas spirit is the Holy Spirit who dwells in all who belong to Jesus, and He is with us every day.

This year as we share the story of Christ’s birth with our children, I hope that we will remember to tell them why He came and how His coming is relevant to our lives.

Joyce Swann is a nationally-known author and speaker. Her own story of teaching her ten children from the first grade through master’s degrees before their seventeenth birthdays is retold in her book, Looking Backward: My Twenty-Five Years as a Homeschooling Mother. Her novel, The Warrior, about how one woman's prayers change the lives of those around her, is available on Kindle and in paperback. For more information visit her website at Frontier 2000 or like her on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/frontier2000mediagroup.

Next

In Next, the 2007 movie starring Nicolas Cage and Jessica Biel, Cage plays a small-time Las Vegas magician whose ability to see two minutes into the future with absolute clarity, has enabled him to have a somewhat successful magic act and to supplement his income by using his psychic ability to win at the gambling tables.

When an FBI agent, played by Julianne Moore, becomes convinced that Cage actually can see into the future and that his act is not an “act” at all, the agency kidnaps him in order to force him to work with them to stop a group of terrorists from detonating a nuclear weapon on American soil.

Fortunately for Cage, while lying in bed one morning, he foresees these events and begins to mentally work out the various outcomes of a number of different actions that he might take. To his dismay he realizes that whatever option he selects, the outcome is the same—he is unable to prevent the bomb from being detonated, and his one true love, played by Jessica Biel, is killed in the explosion.

Cage finally realizes that the only way to save Biel is to leave her before the FBI takes him and tell her that he will meet her in a few weeks at a location known only to the two of them. Thus, he is able to save both his country and his true love from being blown to smithereens.

I saw Next in the movie theatre when it was released, and a couple of weeks ago, when I was channel surfing, it was again brought to my attention. As absurd as the premise is, I could not help thinking that we Americans now find ourselves in a very similar situation. As a nation we have made a series of bad choices that will result in disaster unless we can find a way to change our direction entirely. On the other hand, if we continue on our present path, no matter how hard we try to tweak the outcome, disaster is imminent.

Sadly, this country has embraced a godless, sinful world view that can end only in disaster. Whether we are governed by liberals or conservatives, unless those governing are men and women of God, they will make poor choices that will continue to break down the very fabric of our society. I am, therefore, petitioning each of you to join me in praying for revival for our nation and for the world.

I have been praying for revival since 1995, and during this time I have become focused on some specifics that I believe are key to a successful revival. Here are some of those points:

1.  Pray for what you want God to do. Do not limit your prayers because you think your requests are too big.
2. Pray for world-wide revival. It is not enough to have revival in our own city or our own state or even our own country. The world needs Jesus, and we need to pray for world-wide revival. As I pray, I ask Jesus to bring revival “to the United States, to all of North America, to all of Central and South America, to Europe, to Asia, to Africa, to Australia, to Antarctica, to the Arctic Circle, and to every island nation.” I pray that “there will not be even one square centimeter of land on earth where the Holy Spirit does not fall.
3. I pray that this will be the greatest revival that the world has seen, thus far, and that billions of people will be saved.
4.  I pray that those who sit in darkness will see a great light.
5. I pray that Islam will be pushed back for one-thousand years. When I first found myself praying this particular part, I felt intimidated, but then I realized that through Charles Martel prior to 800 A.D. and the Crusades a couple of hundred years later, that is exactly what happened. Why should we not expect it to be pushed back again?
6. I pray that we will see great revival in the Middle East where Christians are persecuted and killed for their faith. I pray that those people will be set free to preach the gospel and witness and worship openly.
7. I pray for revival in Israel. I pray that the Jewish nation will find Jesus and that millions of Jews will be saved.
8. Finally, I pray that God will allow me and my family to have our full part in bringing about this revival. I pray that we will be obedient to all that He has for us to do, and that we will bring many people to Jesus Christ.

Like the Nicolas Cage character, I have looked at the direction this nation is headed from every angle, and I am convinced that if we do not change paths, nothing is going to save us. A return to genuine Christian principles based on a relationship with Jesus Christ is our only hope. That return to Christ will happen only through genuine revival.

 

Joyce Swann is a nationally-known author and speaker. Her own story of teaching her ten children from the first grade through master’s degrees before their seventeenth birthdays is retold in her book, Looking Backward: My Twenty-Five Years as a Homeschooling Mother. Her novel, The Warrior, about how one woman's prayers change the lives of those around her, is available on Kindle and in paperback. For more information visit her website at Frontier 2000 or like her on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/frontier2000mediagroup.