Free PUSH: Persevere Until Success Happens Through Prayer by Cindy Trimm Page B

The earth is renewed day by day, regenerated by the power of God’s Spirit. Even as the Spirit awakens our understanding to His will each morning (Isaiah 50:4 NLT), so the Spirit of God awakens the earth to bring forth His purpose each new day. The psalmist understood the life-giving power of the Spirit of God when he wrote:
    What a wildly wonderful world, God! You made it all, with Wisdom at Your side, made earth overflow with Your wonderful creations…. Take back Your Spirit and they die, revert to original mud; send out Your Spirit and they spring to life—the whole countryside in bloom and blossom
(Psalm 104:24,29 MSG).
    God created the earth for man—and man from the earth—that he might regulate and be sustained by the earth. All the treasures in the universe come directly or indirectly from the earth. Second Corinthians 4:7 speaks of God’s treasures being found in earthen vessels. Although Paul is referring to our human self as this earthen vessel, the earth is also a vessel of God’s treasures. A vessel is much like a womb in that it channels the life of God in every conceivable form—and those we have yet to conceive.
    There is an entire reproductive symphony that is playing throughout the universe. We see it in the animal kingdom and in the anatomical kingdom, and in the atomic and subatomic kingdoms. Creation is in a continual process of birth and regeneration. The whole earth is birthing all of the time, showing forth the resurrection power of God.
“The glory of God—let it last forever! Let God enjoy His creation!”
(Psalm 104:31 MSG).
    Some people, in order to discover God, read books. But there is a great book: the very appearance of created things. Look above you! Look below you! Read it. God, whom you want to discover, never wrote that book with ink. Instead He set before your eyes the things that He had made. Can you ask for a louder voice than that?
—S T . A UGUSTINE (354-430)
    The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of His hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they display knowledge. There is no speech or language where their voice is not heard. Their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world.
—P SALM 19:1-4 NIV
    The whole earth is a living icon of the face of God.… I do not worship matter. I worship the Creator of matter who became matter for my sake, who willed to take His abode in matter, who worked out my salvation through matter. Never will I cease honoring the matter which wrought my salvation! I honor it, but not as God. Because of this I salute all remaining matter with reverence, because God has filled it with His grace and power. Through it my salvation has come to me.
—S T . J OHN OF D AMASCUS (675–749)

Chapter 11
A NATION
    A nation, like a person, has a mind—a mind that must be kept informed and alert, that must know itself, that understands the hopes and needs of its neighbors—all the other nations that live within the narrowing circle of the world.
—F RANKLIN D ELANO R OOSEVELT
    G od has a placed a distinct destiny and redemptive purpose within the womb of every nation. Each nation on earth has been imprinted with a particular God-given DNA and carries the genes of its own unique identity from generation to generation. “You who are wise must know, that different nations have different conceptions,” an Onondaga Indian named Canasatego told an English colonial official in 1744.
    A nation is more than an area of land which lies within a set of boundaries, but it is the sum total of the hopes, disappointments, values, and beliefs of its people. As the British actor Anthony Quayle astutely observed, “To understand a man, you must know his memories. The same is true of a nation.” And in the words of former U.S. President James Garfield, “Territory is but the body of a nation. The people who inhabit its hills and valleys are its soul, its spirit, its life.”
    The womb of a nation