2 Chronicles 7:14 “if My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land.”
1 Kings 8:46-52 “When they sin against You (for there is no one who does not sin), and You become angry with them and deliver them to the enemy, and they take them captive to the land of the enemy, far or near; yet when they come to themselves in the land where they were carried captive, and repent, and make supplication to You in the land of those who took them captive, saying, ‘We have sinned and done wrong, we have committed wickedness’; and when they return to You with all their heart and with all their soul in the land of their enemies who led them away captive…then hear in heaven Your dwelling place their prayer and their supplication, and maintain their cause, and forgive Your people who have sinned against You, and all their transgressions which they have transgressed against You; and grant them compassion before those who took them captive, that they may have compassion on them (for they are Your people and Your inheritance, whom You brought out of Egypt, out of the iron furnace), that Your eyes may be open to the supplication of Your servant and the supplication of Your people Israel, to listen to them whenever they call to You.
It is God Who made America beautiful in the past. May He hear from His bride and heal our land so we can be beautiful once again:
O beautiful for spacious skies,
For amber waves of grain,
For purple mountain majesties
Above the fruited plain
America! America
God shed his grace on thee
And crown thy good with brotherhood
From sea to shining sea
O beautiful for pilgrim feet
Whose stern impassioned stress
A thoroughfare of freedom beat
Across the wilderness
America America
God mend thine every flaw,
Confirm thy soul in self-control,
Thy liberty in law
O beautiful for heroes proved
In liberating strife.
Who more than self their country loved
And mercy more than life
America America
May God thy gold refine
Till all success be nobleness
And every gain divine
O beautiful for patriot dream
That sees beyond the years
Thine alabaster cities gleam
Undimmed by human tears
America America
God shed his grace on thee
And crown thy good with brotherhood
From sea to shining sea
O beautiful for halcyon skies,
For amber waves of grain,
For purple mountain majesties
Above the enameled plain
America America
God shed his grace on thee
Till souls wax fair as earth and air
And music-hearted sea
O beautiful for pilgrims feet,
Whose stem impassioned stress
A thoroughfare for freedom beat
Across the wilderness
America America
God shed his grace on thee
Till paths be wrought through
wilds of thought
By pilgrim foot and knee
O beautiful for glory-tale
Of liberating strife
When once and twice,
for man’s avail
Men lavished precious life
America America
God shed his grace on thee
Till selfish gain no longer stain
The banner of the free
O beautiful for patriot dream
That sees beyond the years
Thine alabaster cities gleam
Undimmed by human tears
America America
God shed his grace on thee
Till nobler men keep once again
Thy whiter jubilee
Photo: Statue of Liberty on the 4th of July
