Day Of Prayer And Repentance

The Editor
The Anguillian

Dear Sir,

Day of Prayer and Repentance

On 16 August the ‘day’ got off to a bad start with worries over the logo used on the tee shirts for the parade.The logo is in fact that of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament that was started in London in 1958. People may be interested in the attached CND pictures.

Once started however there was a marked improvement in the ‘day’. In general I was encouraged by the demonstration and the contributions that were made. It is clear that Anguillians want to take action quickly to stop the degeneration in the fabric of our life in Anguilla. Dame Bernice Lake provided a real and valuable lead and whether or not we were comfortable with all that she said we should take it all on board. The temptation is to applaud just those parts that we liked from what she said or those parts that we feel could promote our own agenda.We must take it all on board. The sentiments expressed by Mr Kent Webster were a lesson to us all. Although apparently unnoticed, the comments made by the young people were valuable and we should listen to them. Overall there would seem to be a good foundation for future action; when our leaders find the vision to take the action.
The ‘day’, however, was billed as one of prayer and repentance and it is here that I very much regret to say that I believe that we were let down, particularly by our church leaders.While churches seem to be proliferating in Anguilla how many leaders were actually present? Support for a cause comes not just from standing on a stage and being seen and heard. We all need to lend our support by our physical presence and our personal prayers, even if we are not asked to say anything. If our elected leaders can do it why can’t our church leaders? I would ask those church leaders that were not present to examine themselves to determine what agenda they were serving.Those that were there were loud in prayer but I had an uneasy feeling that there was a shortage of substance and sincerity. I believe that a close look at Matthew 15:8-9 would be beneficial. This comment may cause hurt but I would ask them to examine their motives and their preparation for the occasion. Which of them felt that they personally had anything to repent of and asked the Lord that they themselves would experience a change of heart? It is so easy to blame all our problems on Satan, among others, but we are well able to screw things up ourselves with no outside help. We all need to admit this. None of the church leaders addressed the matter of repentance. Our elected leaders introduced the word when naming the day but seemed to have little idea what God means by repentance. There was non among the church leaders to teach us or them what repentance means. I can say what repentance is not. It is not pointing out mistakes, preferably of others, and hoping we have done our job.
There is a story in the Bible about a man called Zacchaeus. It is in Luke chapter
19. He was a tax farmer and had undoubtedly profited unduly from his position. Very briefly, he wants to follow Jesus and knows that his past actions were wrong. He wants to go in a new direction that is acceptable to God. He believes that Jesus can save him and make the change. He gives away half what he owns and pays back 4 times what he has stolen.This all is repentance.Verses 8&9 show that repentance is a change of thinking, a change of values and a change of direction in our lives. By believing in Jesus it brought salvation. We must believe that Jesus, by his death, paid the price to get the penalty of sin off our lives. Actually this sort of change in direction is only possible if you believe that Jesus is who he claims to be. There are three letters from John in the Bible. In his first letter, chapter 1, verses 5 to 10 show that all of us who claim to be Christian must see ourselves as God sees us. God says that we are sinners so if we claim we have not sinned God tells us that we are liars and that we make God out to be a liar.The solution is to agree with God and repent of our sin. Repent means to admit we are wrong and to turn our lives back onto the right direction that is pleasing to God. All of this quoting from the Bible may be getting a little tiresome to some but I must mention just one more. This one should be our theme for future action. The reference is 2 Chronicles 7:14. God says “if my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.” There was plenty of calling on God on 16 August so the first part is reasonable, if not entirely accurate. But the calling on God must be followed by humbling ourselves before God by turning to him for the solution because we realize that we can’t find it ourselves and to turn from our present wicked ways to a way that is pleasing to God. I did not see much humbling or turning. We desperately want God to forgive us and to heal our land but this can only be achieved on his terms. It certainly cannot be achieved on our terms. Like it or not, our leaders started the call for repentance and this is what God thinks about it. Note that God does not ask us what we think on the matter.We just do what he says, this is ‘humble’.We can shout and say that we are casting off curses all we like but we must get real and get our focus right if we want to get anywhere.

Bill Grandfield