₦airaland Forum

CHRISTIANITY IS LOVE,PEACE, AND RELATIONSHIP WITH GOD. KNOWING GOD PERSONALLY IS WHAT MATTERS. YOU AS A PERSON, ASK YOURSELF; WHO AM I?
WHY AM I HERE?
WHAT MAKES ME A BEING?
WHAT IS MY PURPOSE OF BEING IN THIS WORLD?
THREE THINGS MAKES UP A MAN; SPIRIT, SOUL AND BODY. WHAT ABOUT GOD?

I found the speech inspiring so i decided to share it.

Remarks by the President at National Prayer Breakfast
Washington Hilton, Washington, D.C.

9:00 A.M. EST

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you so much. To the co-chairs, Jeff and Ann; to all the members of Congress who are here, the distinguished guests who’ve traveled so far to be here this morning; to Randall for your wonderful stories and powerful prayer; to all who are here providing testimony, thank you so much for having me and Michelle here. We are blessed to be here.

I want to begin by just saying a word to Mark Kelly, who’s here. We have been praying for Mark’s wife, Gabby Giffords, for many days now. But I want Gabby and Mark and their entire family to know that we are with them for the long haul, and God is with them for the long haul. (Applause.)

And even as we pray for Gabby in the aftermath of a tragedy here at home, we're also mindful of the violence that we're now seeing in the Middle East, and we pray that the violence in Egypt will end and that the rights and aspirations of the Egyptian people will be realized and that a better day will dawn over Egypt and throughout the world.

For almost 60 years, going back to President Eisenhower, this gathering has been attended by our President. It’s a tradition that I'm proud to uphold not only as a fellow believer but as an elected leader whose entry into public service was actually through the church. This may come as a surprise, for as some of you know, I did not come from a particularly religious family. My father, who I barely knew -- I only met once for a month in my entire life -- was said to be a non-believer throughout his life.

My mother, whose parents were Baptist and Methodist, grew up with a certain skepticism about organized religion, and she usually only took me to church on Easter and Christmas -- sometimes. And yet my mother was also one of the most spiritual people that I ever knew. She was somebody who was instinctively guided by the Golden Rule and who nagged me constantly about the homespun values of her Kansas upbringing, values like honesty and hard work and kindness and fair play.

And it’s because of her that I came to understand the equal worth of all men and all women, and the imperatives of an ethical life and the necessity to act on your beliefs. And it’s because of her example and guidance that despite the absence of a formal religious upbringing my earliest inspirations for a life of service ended up being the faith leaders of the civil rights movement.

There was, of course, Martin Luther King and the Baptist leaders, the ways in which they helped those who had been subjugated to make a way out of no way, and transform a nation through the force of love. But there were also Catholic leaders like Father Theodore Heshburg, and Jewish leaders like Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, Muslim leaders and Hindu leaders. Their call to fix what was broken in our world, a call rooted in faith, is what led me just a few years out of college to sign up as a community organizer for a group of churches on the Southside of Chicago. And it was through that experience working with pastors and laypeople trying to heal the wounds of hurting neighborhoods that I came to know Jesus Christ for myself and embrace Him as my lord and savior. (Applause.)

Now, that was over 20 years ago. And like all of us, my faith journey has had its twists and turns. It hasn’t always been a straight line. I have thanked God for the joys of parenthood and Michelle’s willingness to put up with me. (Laughter.) In the wake of failures and disappointments I've questioned what God had in store for me and been reminded that God’s plans for us may not always match our own short-sighted desires.

And let me tell you, these past two years, they have deepened my faith. (Laughter and applause.) The presidency has a funny way of making a person feel the need to pray. (Laughter.) Abe Lincoln said, as many of you know, “I have been driven to my knees many times by the overwhelming conviction that I had no place else to go.” (Laughter.)

Fortunately, I'm not alone in my prayers. Pastor friends like Joel Hunter and T.D. Jakes come over to the Oval Office every once in a while to pray with me and pray for the nation. The chapel at Camp David has provided consistent respite and fellowship. The director of our Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnership’s office, Joshua DuBois -- young minister himself -- he starts my morning off with meditations from Scripture.

Most of all, I've got friends around the country -- some who I know, some who I don’t know, but I know their friends who are out there praying for me. One of them is an old friend named Kaye Wilson. In our family we call her Momma Kaye. And she happens to be Malia and Sasha’s godmother. And she has organized prayer circles for me all around the country. She started small with her own Bible study group, but once I started running for President and she heard what they were saying about me on cable, she felt the need to pray harder. (Laughter.) By the time I was elected President, she says, “I just couldn’t keep up on my own.” (Laughter.) “I was having to pray eight, nine times a day just for you.” (Laughter.) So she enlisted help from around the country.

It’s also comforting to know that people are praying for you who don’t always agree with you. Tom Coburn, for example, is here. He is not only a dear friend but also a brother in Christ. We came into the Senate at the same time. Even though we are on opposite sides of a whole bunch of issues, part of what has bound us together is a shared faith, a recognition that we pray to and serve the same God. And I keep praying that God will show him the light and he will vote with me once in a while. (Laughter.) It’s going to happen, Tom. (Laughter.) A ray of light is going to beam down. (Laughter.)

My Christian faith then has been a sustaining force for me over these last few years. All the more so, when Michelle and I hear our faith questioned from time to time, we are reminded that ultimately what matters is not what other people say about us but whether we're being true to our conscience and true to our God. “Seek first His kingdom and His righteousness and all these things will be given to you as well.”

As I travel across the country folks often ask me what is it that I pray for. And like most of you, my prayers sometimes are general: Lord, give me the strength to meet the challenges of my office. Sometimes they’re specific: Lord, give me patience as I watch Malia go to her first dance -- (laughter) -- where there will be boys. (Laughter.) Lord, have that skirt get longer as she travels to that dance. (Laughter.)

But while I petition God for a whole range of things, there are a few common themes that do recur. The first category of prayer comes out of the urgency of the Old Testament prophets and the Gospel itself. I pray for my ability to help those who are struggling. Christian tradition teaches that one day the world will be turned right side up and everything will return as it should be. But until that day, we're called to work on behalf of a God that chose justice and mercy and compassion to the most vulnerable.

We've seen a lot of hardship these past two years. Not a day passes when I don't get a letter from somebody or meet someone who’s out of work or lost their home or without health care. The story Randall told about his father -- that's a story that a whole lot of Americans have gone through over these past couple of years.

Sometimes I can't help right away. Sometimes what I can do to try to improve the economy or to curb foreclosures or to help deal with the health care system -- sometimes it seems so distant and so remote, so profoundly inadequate to the enormity of the need. And it is my faith, then, that biblical injunction to serve the least of these, that keeps me going and that keeps me from being overwhelmed. It’s faith that reminds me that despite being just one very imperfect man, I can still help whoever I can, however I can, wherever I can, for as long as I can, and that somehow God will buttress these efforts.

It also helps to know that none of us are alone in answering this call. It’s being taken up each and every day by so many of you -- back home, your churches, your temples and synagogues, your fellow congregants -- so many faith groups across this great country of ours.

I came upon a group recently called “charity: water,” a group that supports clean water projects overseas. This is a project that was started by a former nightclub promoter named Scott Harrison who grew weary of living only for himself and feeling like he wasn’t following Christ as well as he should.
And because of Scott’s good work, “charity: water” has helped 1.7 million people get access to clean water. And in the next 10 years, he plans to make clean water accessible to a hundred million more. That’s the kind of promoting we need more of, and that’s the kind of faith that moves mountains. And there’s stories like that scattered across this room of people who’ve taken it upon themselves to make a difference.

Now, sometimes faith groups can do the work of caring for the least of these on their own; sometimes they need a partner, whether it’s in business or government. And that’s why my administration has taken a fresh look at the way we organize with faith groups, the way we work with faith groups through our Office of Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships.

And through that office, we’re expanding the way faith groups can partner with our government. We’re helping them feed more kids who otherwise would go hungry. We’re helping fatherhood groups get dads the support they need to be there for their children. We’re working with non-profits to improve the lives of people around the world. And we’re doing it in ways that are aligned with our constitutional principles. And in this work, we intend to expand it in the days ahead, rooted in the notions of partnership and justice and the imperatives to help the poor.

Of course there are some needs that require more resources than faith groups have at their disposal. There’s only so much a church can do to help all the families in need -- all those who need help making a mortgage payment, or avoiding foreclosure, or making sure their child can go to college. There’s only so much that a nonprofit can do to help a community rebuild in the wake of disaster. There’s only so much the private sector will do to help folks who are desperately sick get the care that they need.
And that's why I continue to believe that in a caring and in a just society, government must have a role to play; that our values, our love and our charity must find expression not just in our families, not just in our places of work and our places of worship, but also in our government and in our politics.

Over the past two years, the nature of these obligations, the proper role of government has obviously been the subject of enormous controversy. And the debates have been fierce as one side’s version of compassion and community may be interpreted by the other side as an oppressive and irresponsible expansion of the state or an unacceptable restriction on individual freedom.

That's why a second recurring theme in my prayers is a prayer for humility. Now, God answered this prayer for me early on by having me marry Michelle. (Laughter and applause.) Because whether it’s reminding me of a chore undone, or questioning the wisdom of watching my third football game in a row on Sunday, she keeps me humble. (Laughter.)

But in this life of politics when debates have become so bitterly polarized, and changes in the media lead so many of us just to listen to those who reinforce our existing biases, it’s useful to go back to Scripture to remind ourselves that none of has all the answers -- none of us, no matter what our political party or our station in life.

The full breadth of human knowledge is like a grain of sand in God’s hands. And there are some mysteries in this world we cannot fully comprehend. As it’s written in Job, “God’s voice thunders in marvelous ways. He does great things beyond our understandings.”

The challenge I find then is to balance this uncertainty, this humility, with the need to fight for deeply held convictions, to be open to other points of view but firm in our core principles. And I pray for this wisdom every day.

I pray that God will show me and all of us the limits of our understanding, and open our ears and our hearts to our brothers and sisters with different points of view; that such reminders of our shared hopes and our shared dreams and our shared limitations as children of God will reveal the way forward that we can travel together.

And the last recurring theme, one that binds all prayers together, is that I might walk closer with God and make that walk my first and most important task.

In our own lives it’s easy to be consumed by our daily worries and our daily concerns. And it is even easier at a time when everybody is busy, everybody is stressed, and everybody -- our culture is obsessed with wealth and power and celebrity. And often it takes a brush with hardship or tragedy to shake us out of that, to remind us of what matters most.

We see an aging parent wither under a long illness, or we lose a daughter or a husband in Afghanistan, we watch a gunman open fire in a supermarket -- and we remember how fleeting life can be. And we ask ourselves how have we treated others, whether we’ve told our family and friends how much we love them. And it’s in these moments, when we feel most intensely our mortality and our own flaws and the sins of the world, that we most desperately seek to touch the face of God.

So my prayer this morning is that we might seek His face not only in those moments, but each and every day; that every day as we go through the hustle and bustle of our lives, whether it’s in Washington or Hollywood or anywhere in between, that we might every so often rise above the here and now, and kneel before the Eternal; that we might remember, Kaye, the fact that those who wait on the Lord will soar on wings like eagles, and they will run and not be weary, and they will walk and not faint.

When I wake in the morning, I wait on the Lord, and I ask Him to give me the strength to do right by our country and its people. And when I go to bed at night I wait on the Lord, and I ask Him to forgive me my sins, and look after my family and the American people, and make me an instrument of His will.

I say these prayers hoping they will be answered, and I say these prayers knowing that I must work and must sacrifice and must serve to see them answered. But I also say these prayers knowing that the act of prayer itself is a source of strength. It’s a reminder that our time on Earth is not just about us; that when we open ourselves to the possibility that God might have a larger purpose for our lives, there’s a chance that somehow, in ways that we may never fully know, God will use us well.

May the Lord bless you and keep you, and may He bless this country that we love. (Applause.)

END

http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2011/02/03/remarks-president-national-prayer-breakfast

splashbaby: You didn't even do your research well..I have been here for five years and no news makes the front page like that of Tonto Dike..anything about her is a front page material....Just type her name without any article.

yeah, she should have been the number one person on the article.

If you are reading this article then you are reading the right article at the right time.
my name is ...... i have had 4 years experience on nairaland, i know what makes the front page and i know what doesn't. in case you are wondering what this person is talking about... well, neither do I!
you see, making front page on nairaland is so easy that i also have tried all the tricks i know but unfortunately...
How do you feel when you see your post make front page on nairaland?
Do you dance azonto, kukere, etc.?
Do you feel on top of the world?
Do you give thanks to Baba God?
Do you tell all your friends that your story made the front page on nairaland?
If any of these is your case then, i think you should do more by celebrating with your friends.
If your case is just to make the first comment on posts, and you think you have done it all, then you should re-think because there is nothing like making the front page on nairaland.
Making front page on nairaland is so easy even a 2yrs old child can do it. Its a secret i want to share with you and i know if i decide to sell it to you i might charge as hight as $10. i am not going to charge you $10, $5, or $1, i am giving you for free!
My experience is so vast that, if i decide to make front page in the next one minute all i have to do is to take a picture with any celebrity and tag it as ''A NAIRALANDER WITH ******''
for example ''A NAIRALANDER WITH DADDY SHOKY''
Another way to make front page is to post news about a celebrity, whether he/she is eating, sleeping, walking, shit***ng, fighting, having s****x, smiling, laughing, in the car, in the house, etc. I tell you, if you post does not make front page, then i will pay you $50.
Another way to make front page is to upload your picture and ask for people's opinion about you. But if you are posting picture about yourself make sure you are not too handsome/beautiful because its the secret to nairaland front page. I have seen nairalanders becoming celebrities overnight just by posting their pictures.
I will stop here and if you want more info on how to make front page on nairaland, my advice to you is to find something more engaging.

zig2ryme04: selling GPB/USD, reason, shooting star on the 1hr time frame. stop: 1.5549 tp 1.5436

profit taken. bias still on the upside

selling GPB/USD, reason, shooting star on the 1hr time frame. stop: 1.5549 tp 1.5436

InstaForex wont kill me with their bonus!

cant stop laughing!

Do you think its better to pray against corruption than to fight it in Nigeria? Is it something we can fight physically or spiritually.

chai!!!

people say i have open teeth, is it true?

OK.

Hello guys, im desperately in need of 5$ liberty reserve. i cant go to the bank to pay cos the money is little. if i can send recharge card to anyone interested in selling to me i will really appreciate it. its urgent, my number is 08061222265

my story geos thus;
i live in ikorodu and most times i return home late at night. on getting home, i will have to pass through a narrow bridge made of ply woods
and there are bushes at both sides of the bridge (i mean thick bushes).
on monnday 3rd of December 2012 at about 9:00pm, i was returning home from church and the only place i had to pass was through the bridge.
it was very dark and there was no power to light up the place. i only had my nokia phone touchlight with me and i had to turn it on just to see the pathway.
at the end of the bridge, there is a small gate that serves as entrance to the estate. i was walking through the bridge with my touchlight phone just in case i come
across a snake or any other wild animal. it was so dark and i was the only one walking. i always try to be careful when i am on the bridge most especially during raining season.
to cut the story short, i was half way the bridge looking at the small gate that serves as entrance to the estate. sudenly, i saw someone coming towards me, i said to myself thank God
i met someone along the way. i tried to focus my touchlight phone on the path so that i and the other person will see the road clearly. what i noticed was that the more i get closer to the
person the more my body temperature changes, then i knew it was not ordinary. i couldnt run cos i had to move on.
on getting closer, then i noticed the kind of thing i am faced with. i saw a lady in dark purple robe, her hair was beautiful and she stretched forth her hands making some sounds.
i moved closer and when i got very close to her, every part of my body reacted strangely and i had to point the phone's light on her face, when i saw the face i could not look at it a second.
the next thing i did was to shout ''JESUS!''. she was just going with her hands stretched and making the strange sound and going her way. i had to walk faster and when i got to the gate i
looked back and she was still going but i hardly saw her. then i knew i had passed through something that is not ordinary. i had to rush home and pray and i said to myself if i had passed
through a ghost or spirit or something else. i asked my friends and they told me it was a ghost that was going on a mission or just going her own way. that was my experience.

zig2ryme04: invest in forex and with strict risk reward ratio and proper money management, you will surely get 5000 or more daily.

that reminds me, you can also go into fish farming and it is very lucrative especially here in lagos. I am into it and i know the in and out of it. if you have enough space you can start and it wont cost you much to start but the profit is always sure. the fishes mature after 4 month and you will always get people that are ready to buy from you. if you want more info about it i am ready to assist you. cheers!

you can try www.graphcard.com

invest in forex and with strict risk reward ratio and proper money management, you will surely get 5000 or more daily.

Interesting!

“When the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?” Luke 18:8

"But there were also false prophets among the people, even as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Lord who bought them, and bring on themselves swift destruction. And many will follow their destructive ways, because of whom the way of truth will be blasphemed. By covetousness they will exploit you with deceptive words; for a long time their judgment has not been idle, and their destruction does not slumber. 2 Peter 2:1-3

LaconicINC: i have registered,but its still showing $0,when will the money appear in account

try to join their group on facebook and after they confirm u,then your account will be credited.

efe22: Can someone please explain what happen to EJ. I was on a sell on Friday @ 109.90 which was in profit forgetting to close before 10PM. As at the close of market at 10PM, trade was in -3 pips only for me to check 11pm today to see price @111.11 which mercilessly wiped out my entire balance. My first time of experiencing a mess like this. Another lesson not to leave trade open over the weekend if you must not use SL. Honestly my heart is broken as I don't even know what to do now.

it was due to the election that happened in Japan, the opposition won the election.

get free 10$ from insta forex to trade and withdraw the profit without any restriction. this is how to go about it;

click the link to get the 10$ bonus.
https://secure.instaforex.com/ActivateSBN.aspx?partner=5177887

open a new account under the first box and fill in the new account number and password. in the ''page in social network'' input: http://www.facebook.com/username the username should be your facebook username e.g http://www.facebook.com/zig2ryme04 then click send.
happy trading!

lawson007: so what do we place as the "page in social network"?

kindly click on ''open account'' its below the first box of the page, then after you open the account, go back to the page and input your account number and password then send request.
i hope you got it?