Obama is a Believer and a Person of Prayer

It is Veteran's Day. Let us be thankful for the service of our men and women in the Armed Forces, and all those who have served over the years, especially those who died for their country. Our freedom was won by their blood, sweat and tears!

And the faith of millions of Americans who have gone before us and paved the way with their prayers.

President-elect Obama is a man of prayer, and we need to surround him and Vice-President-elect Joe Biden with our prayers. They and our country dearly need our prayers!

"I am a Christian," the President-elect told the Chicago Sun-Times a few years ago. "So, I have a deep faith," Obama continues. "I'm rooted in the Christian tradition. I believe that there are many paths to the same place, and that is a belief that there is a higher power, a belief that we are connected as a people. That there are values that transcend race or culture, that move us forward, and there's an obligation for all of us individually as well as collectively to take responsibility to make those values lived."

When he was 6 years old, after his parents divorced, Obama moved with his mother and her new husband -- a non-practicing Muslim -- to Indonesia, where he lived until he was 10 and attended a Roman Catholic school.

"I went to a Catholic school in a Muslim country, so I was studying the Bible and catechisms by day, and, at night, you'd hear the Muslim prayer call," Obama recalls. "My mother was a deeply spiritual person and would spend a lot of time talking about values and give me books about the world's religions and talk to me about them.

"Her view always was that underlying these religions was a common set of beliefs about how you treat other people and how you aspire to act, not just for yourself, but also for the greater good."

Obama is unapologetic in saying he has a "personal relationship with Jesus Christ."
Obama says he reads the Bible, though not as regularly as he'd like, now that he's on the campaign trail. But he does find time to pray.

"It's not formal, me getting on my knees," he says. "I think I have an ongoing conversation with God.... I'm constantly asking myself questions about what I'm doing, why I am doing it.

"The biggest challenge, I think, is always maintaining your moral compass."

Illinois state Sen. James Meeks, who is also the pastor of Chicago's Salem Baptist Church. Obama has stopped by Salem for Wednesday-night Bible study.

"I know that he's a person of prayer," Meeks says. "He came by for prayer."

Still, when you read Obama's books, you see his faith is a growing thing, just like with all of us. Let us pray that God will teach him many things in the next four years.