By Pastor Doug Stauffer
We are quick to say, “God bless America.” Perhaps we should stop long enough to ask whether America is seeking the God whose blessings we desire.
Scripture is not silent on the matter. 2 Chronicles 7:14 gives the terms plainly: “If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.” Notice the order. God does not say, “If my people ask for blessing.” He says seek my face. The blessing is not the first request. It is the fruit of obedience — what follows humbling, praying, seeking, and turning, not what precedes it.
This September marks two anniversaries that ought to be considered together. Two hundred fifty years ago, a fledgling nation declared its independence “with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence” –the founders sought God, not merely invoked His name. And twenty-five years ago this month, the nation buried nearly three thousand of its own in the wreckage of two towers, a field in Pennsylvania, and the Pentagon.
I remember that day and that week. I remember pews filled that had not been filled in years. I remember members of Congress standing together on the Capitol steps, setting politics aside long enough to sing “God Bless America” with one voice. For a season, the nation did what Second Chronicles asks. It humbled itself. It sought Him.
Washington warned us that the seeking of God would not last on its own. In his Farewell Address he admonished the young republic that “of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports,” and that reason and experience both forbid us to expect national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle. He was not offering advice for 1796. He was naming terms that do not expire with the century — terms this republic was tested against twenty-five years ago this month, and is being tested against in more ways than we can enumerate.
And here is the lament: the pews that filled in September of 2001 emptied again. The unity on the Capitol steps did not survive the decade. We kept the slogan, but we stopped seeking.
A nation does not drift toward God. It drifts away from Him, the way a field left untended does not drift toward harvest — it drifts toward thorn and thistle. Humbling is a discipline. Prayer is a discipline. Turning from wicked ways is a discipline. None of the three happens by accident, and none of them happens once and stays finished.
So on this September, weighted with two anniversaries, let the church do what the nation will not likely do on its own. Let us humble ourselves. Let us pray. Let us seek His face — not His hand only, but His face — and let us turn, specifically and by name, from what needs turning from.
The God who spoke those words in Second Chronicles has not changed. America is not Israel, and the promise was given specifically to God’s covenant people concerning their land. But the spiritual principle remains unmistakable: God honors humility, prayer, repentance, and those who genuinely seek His face.
Twenty-five years after September 11, and 250 years into the American experiment, perhaps the question is not whether America still wants God’s blessing. The question is whether God’s people still want God badly enough to seek His face.
America, it is time to look up again.
