The day of infamy became a week of prayer. Businesses closed early, air travel was shut off, and evening events were canceled.

Churches opened their doors for formal and informal times of prayer in response to the Sept. 11 attack on America.

Airport chaplains provided prayer ser vices for stranded travelers. Sporting events were called off, along with most other scheduled activities. It was as if the nation felt the collective need to turn to the Lord, with even more prayer services throughout the week.

In times of trial and tragedy, we go to God because we have no answers left. We have run out of resources in our selves. In this crisis we also have encountered an elusive enemy.

In the political realm, the subject of prayer often comes up as a matter of debate. But in the face of national tragedy, such debates seem to have been shelved. Those who often would criticize the president for calling for prayer or quoting Scripture have been pretty quiet.

When individuals turn to the Lord in response to tragedy, the results can be startling and life-changing for the better. It happens to nations as well.

The nation of Israel had a temple designed to draw the people back to the Lord in times of national calamity. “Have respect therefore to the prayer of thy servant, and to his supplication, 0 Lord my God, to hearken unto the cry and the prayer which thy servant prayeth before thee: That thine eyes may be open upon this house clay and night, upon the place whereof thou hast said that thou wouldest put thy name there; to hearken unto the prayer which thy servant prayeth toward this place.” (2 Chron. 6:19-20)

Other nations have turned to God in prayer, sometimes in national crisis, other times in national malaise, with beneficial results. Whether we call these movements revivals or reformations, usually they are a combination of both terms.

England was in a spiritual stupor in the early 18th Century, perhaps worn out from civil war and the divisions of the previous century over whether the king should have absolute or limited authority.

A few people turned to prayer in the 1730s and 1740s, and the answers came in the next generation through evangelists such as John Wesley and George Whitefield. Thousands came to commitment to Christ, as Wesley, Whitefield, and others began to preach to large crowds hungry for direction in life. The crowds were full of coal miners and others who seldom attended the Church of England parishes.

It had been called the “Gin Age” for good reason, considering the high consumption of alcohol. Drunkenness of epidemic proportions was dramatically reduced in the Great Awakening. Crime declined, not so much because of better law enforcement methods but because people turned away from a life of crime to a life of faith.

Prison reformers began to tackle the horrible conditions behind bars. William Wilberforce started a noble crusade against slavery that eventually ended with its abolition.

In the United States, similar revivals have broken out periodically. In the 1800s, one result was a movement to end slavery. John Quincy Adams joined in, calling for an end to slavery when he was in the House of Representatives after serving as president. His pleas were not heard as clearly as Wilberforce’s in England, and the sad result was a bloody Civil War instead of a legislative abolition of slavery.

Later revivals 1cc! to all kinds of at tempts to alleviate suffering in cities.

Not every turn to prayer yields such dramatic results. Often the impact is hard for historians to trace. But the psalmist in Psalm 77 says: “I cried out to God with my voice—to God with my voice; and He gave ear to me. In the clay of my trouble I sought the Lord; my hand was stretched out in the night without ceasing.”

Those prayers will be heard in some way or another. Ideally, this kind of prayer will continue after the crisis fades from the news, with perseverance to ward a new time of national revival and reformation.