Steve Martaindale

An Amazon River fisherman carries his catch to market in Santarem, Brazil. (c) 2016 by Steve Martaindale

“I’m praying for America to turn to God. Will you join me?”

Thus read a graphic shared through social media. Frankly, it’s similar to hundreds of others, most of which make an effort to sustain the American perception of our country being more deserving of God’s grace than other countries.

I get it. We all want to be associated with winners. We want our favorite sports teams to vanquish its foes or for that performer we love to be adored by others. And I love this example: we so badly want the brand of pickup we drive to be thought better than its competitors that we’ll stick a decal on the back window portraying a cartoon character taking a leak on the other truck’s logo.

So, naturally, we want to be in the best country in the world. And, it being the best country, surely God will love us more and protect us better.

Back to the question. No, I will not be joining you in praying for America to turn to God.

Why?

It seems akin to a man dying of cancer praying that his right knee be healed. There is so much more to God’s world than our one, self-important country.

According to population clocks run by the U.S. Census Bureau, at one point this morning, the world’s population was estimated at 7,336,791,070 (7.3 billion) and the U.S. population at 323,961,629 (323 million). That means the American population (no small number of which came here from other countries, by the way) accounts for less than 4.42 percent of the world’s population.

And by world’s population, I mean all of the other people God created. People he loves just as much as he does us. Many of those people also have much greater needs than us.

Therefore, my prayers will continue to be that the people of the world turn to God.

And that they turn to peace. And love. And justice. And understanding. And compassion.

Will you join me?