The National Day of Prayer - is it up to the courts?

Last year a federal judge in Wisconsin declared the National Day of Prayer unconstitutional. This year a higher court in Chicago overturned that ruling on the grounds that those who brought the case lacked proper legal standing. So, for this year at least, the U.S. government will recognize May 5 as The National Day of Prayer. Next year it may be found unconstitutional again if challenged with proper legal ducks in a row.

I was struck by the irony that we see the National Day of Prayer as a legal or political battle to be fought with the weapons of lawyers, political pressure and the votes of freedom loving Americans. All these are certainly reasonable and we must do all we can to defend our country from decline, including the harm caused by a forced secularism that goes way beyond the constitutional idea of separation of church and state. If these are some tools for overcoming our enemies and defending our country, are they the only or best tools at our disposal? What about prayer, can God, would God, intervene on our behalf in these issues? Is our country in the mess it is because we have spent too much time praying and not enough time engaging in politics?

The Psalms are praises to God for His past help and appeals to God for present and future help. Would we see our weakness and God's power as practical to our lives as the Psalmist did? Would we pray first and most (all year) and then do the things we can do?

Psalm 71

God the Rock of Salvation

 ¹ In You, O LORD, I put my trust;
         Let me never be put to shame.
 ² Deliver me in Your righteousness, and cause me to escape;
         Incline Your ear to me, and save me.
 ³ Be my strong refuge,
         To which I may resort continually;
         You have given the commandment to save me,
         For You are my rock and my fortress.
    
 ⁴ Deliver me, O my God, out of the hand of the wicked,
         Out of the hand of the unrighteous and cruel man.
 ⁵ For You are my hope, O Lord GOD;
         You are my trust from my youth.
 ⁶ By You I have been upheld from birth;
         You are He who took me out of my mother’s womb.
         My praise shall be continually of You.
    
 ⁷ I have become as a wonder to many,
         But You are my strong refuge.
 ⁸ Let my mouth be filled with Your praise
         And with Your glory all the day.
    
 ⁹ Do not cast me off in the time of old age;
         Do not forsake me when my strength fails.
 ¹⁰ For my enemies speak against me;
         And those who lie in wait for my life take counsel together,
 ¹¹ Saying, “God has forsaken him;
         Pursue and take him, for there is none to deliver him.”
    
 ¹² O God, do not be far from me;
         O my God, make haste to help me!
 ¹³ Let them be confounded and consumed
         Who are adversaries of my life;
         Let them be covered with reproach and dishonor
         Who seek my hurt.
    
 ¹⁴ But I will hope continually,
         And will praise You yet more and more.
 ¹⁵ My mouth shall tell of Your righteousness
         And Your salvation all the day,
         For I do not know their limits.
 ¹⁶ I will go in the strength of the Lord GOD;
         I will make mention of Your righteousness, of Yours only.
    
 ¹⁷ O God, You have taught me from my youth;
         And to this day I declare Your wondrous works.
 ¹⁸ Now also when I am old and grayheaded,
         O God, do not forsake me,
         Until I declare Your strength to this generation,
         Your power to everyone who is to come.
    
 ¹⁹ Also Your righteousness, O God, is very high,
         You who have done great things;
         O God, who is like You?
 ²⁰ You, who have shown me great and severe troubles,
         Shall revive me again,
         And bring me up again from the depths of the earth.
 ²¹ You shall increase my greatness,
         And comfort me on every side.
    
 ²² Also with the lute I will praise You—
         And Your faithfulness, O my God!
         To You I will sing with the harp,
         O Holy One of Israel.
 ²³ My lips shall greatly rejoice when I sing to You,
         And my soul, which You have redeemed.
 ²⁴ My tongue also shall talk of Your righteousness all the day long;
         For they are confounded,
         For they are brought to shame
         Who seek my hurt. (NKJV)

Who has the power? Seek, pray, praise, trust and know victory is in Him!