Fasting again, we are, as a nation.  How does fasting change the outcome of this mighty nation from being attacked on all sides, and that means from within as well as without.

19 out of the 22 civilizations that have been on the earth have fallen from the inside.  It makes sense.  If you are riddled with disease, you will eventually die without some kind of aid.  If we as a people turn away the very creator of our being, the creator of this great world and this great nation, then why would be believe we should be anything other than a disease-ridden body, ready to throw in the towel.

On the other hand, if we were to turn our attentions back to Him who loves us, can heal us, can deliver us, can protect us, wouldn't that be celebration to give up a few meals of a meager sustenance, and turn to the table to feast with the greatest company that lives, even Christ himself.

This summer I learned something quite interesting about Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War.

That war, like all others, was miserable.  And it dragged on forever.  The men that represented the North were dragging their feet.  Families were battling with one another.  Men were away from their homes and families.  I am posting this in its entirety for you to read.  May it bless you and your endeavors to love God and be found on the right hand side of He who loves us most.


Proclamation Appointing a National Fast Day
Washington, D.C.
March 30, 1863 (Senator James Harlan of Iowa, whose daughter later married President Lincoln's son Robert, introduced this Resolution in the Senate on March 2, 1863. The Resolution asked President Lincoln to proclaim a national day of prayer and fasting. The Resolution was adopted on March 3, and signed by Lincoln on March 30.)
By the President of the United States of America. A Proclamation.
Whereas, the Senate of the United States, devoutly recognizing the Supreme Authority and just Government of Almighty God, in all the affairs of men and of nations, has, by a resolution, requested the President to designate and set apart a day for National prayer and humiliation. And whereas it is the duty of nations as well as of men, to own their dependence upon the overruling power of God, 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 the Holy Scriptures and proven by all history, that those nations only are blessed whose God is the Lord. And, insomuch as we know that, by His divine law, nations like individuals are subjected to punishments and chastisements 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 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.
Now, therefore, in compliance with the request, and fully concurring in the views of the Senate, I do, by this my proclamation, designate and set apart Thursday, the 30th. day of April, 1863, as a day of national humiliation, fasting and prayer. And I do hereby request all the People to abstain, on that day, from their ordinary secular pursuits, and to unite, at their several places of public worship and their respective homes, in keeping the day holy to the Lord, and devoted to the humble discharge of the religious duties proper to that solemn occasion. All this being done, in sincerity and truth, let us then rest humbly in the hope authorized by the Divine teachings, that the united cry of the Nation will be heard on high, and answered with blessings, no less than the pardon of our national sins, and the restoration of our now divided and suffering Country, to its former happy condition of unity and peace.
In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed. Done at the City of Washington, this thirtieth day of March, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and of the Independence of the United States the eighty seventh.
By the President: Abraham Lincoln
William H. Seward, Secretary of State.
(Source: The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, edited by Roy P. Basler.)