Our guilt has reached the heavens...

"O my God, I am too ashamed and disgraced to lift up my face to you, my God, because our sins are higher than our heads and our guilt has reached to the heavens."  Ezra 9:6

FBC of The Colony is going through 40 Days of Prayer, to humble ourselves before God.  Today is day 6.  I read the above passage from Ezra, along with today's prayer:  "Pray that God's people would assume responsibility for the moral and spiritual erosion of our nation and our world."  I have been meditating on this today, and it has troubled me.  At first, it was hard to pray this on a personal level.  It's like saying that I caused marriages to end in divorce, babies to be aborted, children to be abused, and on and on.  That's hard stuff.  The more I thought about it, though, the more convinced I was of the righteousness of this prayer.

Essentially, it's admitting that as a people and as a nation, we are sinful.  Our guilt has reached the heavens, as Ezra says.  I came to view this prayer as an admission that, though I did not cause the sins of the nation, I recognize the sins of the nation and confess them on behalf of my people.  It is a prayer of confession and acceptance of responsibility.  It is acknowledging our corporate sin, my personal acceptance of that sin, and my repentance of it.  Though the sin did not originate with me, I want it to end with me.  I want to renounce the curse for the generations that follow.  

Humbly,

Jennifer