God’s Word for the State: A Journal Entry - Vicky Beeching
I was invited to be the guest Gospel Artist at the 46th Annual California Prayer Breakfast held in Sacramento on Thursday May 10
th, 2007. I was seated at the top table, alongside about 9 senators and assembly members. Governor Schwarzenegger was in the middle, a couple of seats away from me. I sang three times throughout the program.
The breakfast consisted of speeches from several key senators and assembly members, with an address by the Governor. I was so inspired by Schwarzenegger's message on serving others by giving ourselves away to those in need.
I opened the event with "Yesterday, Today and Forever," sharing that Jesus is the unchanging foundation in the ever-fragile world in which we live and work. We need to build our nation on Him -- the unchanging, solid rock.
I knew my final song would be "Above All Else." I wanted to send the message that when we place the Lord at the center, we know we have our compass set in the right direction for life, for politics, for everything.
I didn't know what to sing as my third song. I felt like I didn't have a song specifically relevant to the theme of the prayer breakfast, so during sound check, I grabbed a napkin, asked the Lord for inspiration, and a song came. The words from 2 Chronicles 7:14 strongly pulled at my heart. The passage says, "My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land." This turned into a lyric, and I worked out a verse and a chorus and decided to take a leap of faith and sing it at the breakfast in an hour's time!
Before that song slot, the schedule said there would be "an Old Testament reading," but the passage wasn't mentioned. As they started to read it, I was already making my way to the microphone to get ready to sing. But it caught my full attention as, to my amazement, the set passage for the day being read out loud was 2 Chronicles 7, the exact words the Lord had given me for the song I was about to sing!
I stepped up to sing, explaining how the Lord had laid that same passage on my heart an hour earlier in sound check, and that I had written a song with those lyrics especially for the breakfast. We all felt like God was up to something powerful! As I sang it, the presence of God was very strong in the room and looking out at the people, I saw tears on many faces. It was an intense moment as we realized that God had given us a word for the State, a call to prayer and a promise that He would stretch out His hand of healing and, we pray, of revival for the whole land.
Meeting people afterwards, I was told that 2 Chronicles 7:14 has been their central verse as a body of Christian senators and assembly members; that they have used it frequently in their times together. It was amazing. God is on the move! It was an honor to be invited to participate and I will be continuing to carry a prayer burden for California and their governing leaders.
