A Prayer For Deliverance From Blindness

 

 

Almighty God, who so wisely created us to see, hear, smell, taste and touch, we thank You for these senses with which we stay in contact with the world all about us.  We confess that we do not always use them wisely, and from time to time they grow numb and we are robbed of their blessing to us.  We have been reminded of this when this past week our country completed one of what many consider  the most absurd, ridiculous and insane programs in the 223 year history of our country.  It was jokingly called: "Cash for Clunkers."  A government program used as an economically dubious, environmentally negligible, politically lazy handout, in which 99% of our population gave to the other 1%, 35 to 45,000 dollars for trading in what was called a "clunker."  No matter what the condition of the car, no matter what year, make or model, as long as it averaged l8 or fewer miles to the gallon of gas it was considered a "clunker."   Although promoted as an aid to cleaning up the environment, at its best, it will save only 160 million gallons of gas in a year, a minuscule amount in the light of the fact that we use 378 million gallons a day.

 

Lord God, who looks down on every activity of mankind, we’re not interested in debating the politics of this program and certainly not the indiscernible cleaning up of the environment, nor even the destruction of the many cars still able to pass a smog test,   but we are concerned with what it says about how our government views what it is that motivates us today.  At the best it confirms our desire to get a free lunch, of which we know there is none, and at the worst how quickly we accept a bribe to do what the government wants us to do.

 

Great God of the universe, You have spoken so clearly about how You feel about a bribe.  Through the lips of Your servant Job You warned: “Fire will consume the tent of those who love a bribe.”  Even scarier is that in forming Your people into a nation You wrote into the laws, “Do not accept a bribe, for a bribe blinds those who see and twists the words of the righteous.”  To what has our “Cash for Clunkers” blinded us?  What will our government use next to bribe us to use the earnings of future generations for our comfort and well being?  We read that New York City is paying its children to get good grades but if they become a blind generation, of what value is that?  The “Cars for Clunkers” may revive the economy but if it leaves us blind, even just a little blind, how easy it will be to lose our way.  

 

O God Almighty, save us from an ever increasing blindness.  Save us from making choices that make us not only blind but deaf and dumb and finally a mere corpse in the desert of our own making.  We beg it of You, O God of mercy, restore our sight before it is too late and we become a nation of the blind leading the blind.  

 

In the Holy Name of Jesus, we pray.   Amen