Yesterday America remembered President's Day.  In years past, the nation remembered, on separate days, the birthdays of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. More recently, these dates were fused into one, now an official federal holiday, President's Day.

     People of course remember these men for a variety of reasons.  The nation's first president, George Washington, a man of unerring probity, guided the fledgling democracy in its initial years, a steady hand on the national helm.  President during America's Civil War, Abraham Lincoln strove to keep the nation united and, when it appeared that it would not remain so, sought to bring it back together. And it was Abraham Lincoln who made one of the most prescient observations about the  American political scence.  in a time when people were fighting, they thought, in the name of God, he said that, Sir, my concern is not whether God is on our side; my greatest concern is to be on God's side."
     In an era of intense political polarization, often driven by various religious loyalities, around the globe, we do well to note Lincoln's words.  Better that we use our energies seeking what God wants than pursuing what we, in our fallenness, think he wants.  Not that we cannot discern God's leading, but that we recognize that divining God's precise intentions is fiendishly difficult.  Far better that we focus on listening to God rather than speaking to ourselves.  As Lincoln further adds, "For God is always right."