“Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord.” This statement is found in the Old Testament book of Psalms 33:12.

“Blessed” is a desired condition. In Proverbs 10:22, we read, “The blessing of the Lord brings wealth, and he adds no trouble to it.” We may not understand blessing, but most of us know about trouble.

The United States is a nation that has been blessed. It is impossible to deny the benefits of living in this nation.

As a nation, we have had good times and we have had some bad times, but for the most part, the course has been toward freedom and justice. The United States is not an accident. Throughout our history as a nation, there have been people who strategically steered this nation God’s way at critical times.

We are at another one of those critical times. Any knowledgeable person could not deny that some things are slipping away. Mutual respect, safety, the freedom to pursue financial stability, and the value of human life once ruled the day, but now all of those seem to be at risk.

In Paul’s epistle to the Romans 1:21, Paul describes the path to the decay of any nation. He says, “Although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened.” The result of marginalizing God in our lives is stated in verse 24: “Therefore God gave them over…” If we continually turn our backs on God, He will simply allow us to have what we think we want. The next question must be, “How is that working for us?”

Since we do not desire to see our nation turning away from its many blessings, we must change course.       The first step is to be convinced that we have a problem. Every snip of news points to it. Instability rules, fear abounds, and every effort by elected officials only seems to dig the hole deeper.

As a nation, we have always had diversity. We do not all go to the same church and some do not go at all. We do not agree on most things, but there used to be the dominant strain that there is a God and it is best to have him on our side.

There is no shortage of prayer in national catastrophes. Sept. 11 happened and, for a few days, the churches were full. The point is, we seem to know where to go when the need is critical.

The need is critical. What we have now did not happen all at once; it was incremental. Things slipped away a little bit at a time as we pursued the course described in Romans 1:21. The problem now is we are only a couple of clicks away from losing the freedoms that we value the most.

If knowing God while not acknowledging him as the creator and ruler of the universe, nor expressing thanks to him for all he does for us, is the path to national destruction, then the path to stability and prosperity must be the opposite.

A tangible beginning toward losing what we value most was the attempt to eradicate any knowledge or mention of God from our public schools. Once again, we must ask the question, “How are the schools working?”

We need not force anything on anybody, but we should acknowledge the presence of almighty God and our dependence on him. There is no other answer.

Romans 8:31, declares, “If God is for us, who can be against us?” Our turning away from God would certainly ensure His not being on our side as a nation. We cannot afford to have God against us.

The Rev. Dan Puckett is a minister with Life Action Ministries.