As you read this, a wonderful event would have just taken place.

Last Thursday, May 4, men and women and students will have gathered at the fountain near the square in Fayetteville for the express purpose of certainly one of the oldest religious activities. These people, me included, will be bowing their heads to petition heaven and God himself in the celebration of the National Day of Prayer.

This will have been done early in the morning, at noon and in the evening. Earlier in the morning, prayer warriors would meet to pray for all our city government officials. Throughout the day, other prayers will have been conducted for all our leaders in the various capacities where they serve.

No matter what happens to us personally or to our nation as a whole, God's people will still continue to get together to pray. If the stock market rises or crashes or if we are at war or peace or standing in a hospital room or at the grave of a loved one, God's people will still get together to pray. God's people will still meet together where ever they can whether it is in the American Legion Log Cabin or in a multimillion-dollar building to conduct worship and praise services.

God's people will still conduct Sunday school and Bible classes and still teach the young and old the precepts of God led by His spirit as they understand it. People will still read God's word and attempt to apply His meaning to their lives. People will still wade into the baptismal waters to be baptized by emersion or by sprinkling in their churches. People will continue to share their faith as we are commanded to do in sharing the great commission.

I remember when we were serving in the Berlin Brigade in West Berlin in 1977-80, 110 miles inside Communist East Germany. The hated Berlin Wall was this ugly scar which ran right through the middle of this beautiful city and seperated thousands of people from their families. Some families had been visiting one side of the city the day the wall went up. Wives and husbands and young children were separated depending which side of the wall they were on when the communists sealed the border.

Until the wall fell, families were separated for 11 years. People in Cuba and North Korea and China still await liberation.

I can remember the prayer meetings we and all the churches conducted week after week, winter after cold winter, to ask almighty God to tear down the wall and let the families be reunited with their loved ones. We stared at that wall for over three years never knowing if God would in our lifetime tear it down.

But then one day the wind of the Holy Spirit swept through that city and God's people and others who wanted freedom and who had been praying for it began moving. No force of evil could stop it. The rest is seen in the historical films of a sea of humanity beating the wall with sledge hammers, and section by section, it fell apart.

Praise the Lord! There is, I strongly believe, a message to us today. We must get out of our comfort zones and into the battle zones and take back our society for God.

It begins with believers of all denominations who stop fighting each other and band together in unity to fight the real enemy. If not us, then who? Here am I, Lord, send me.

The Rev. Dr. Knox Herndon is the pastor of His House Community Church and a substitute school teacher in the Fayette County school system, and a former Army chaplain. The church is currently meeting in the American Legion Log Cabin across from the fountain on the Square in Fayetteville. Prayer line 770-719-2365; e-mail Khern2365@aol.com.

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