At the risk of receiving nasty comments, today I am posting John Piper’s response to the backlash against President Obama’s address to our nation’s students. This is an issue that has truly befuddled me (and no, I am not trying to start a debate here so please don’t start one), so amidst all the firestorm of shouting and mud-slinging, I was refreshed to hear a different kind of voice reminding us that we serve an all-powerful redeemer God who can use our President’s words for great good in this country.

I am also convicted by how little I actually pray for that to happen.

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John Piper: I Hope My Daughter Hears The President’s Speech

I am stunned at the outcry against the President of the United States  speaking to the youth of this nation about the importance of education.

I am embarrassed by the governor of my home state saying, that the president’s plan to address them is “disruptive . . . uninvited . . . and number three . . . I don’t think he needs to force it upon the nation’s school children.”

This speech seems, for me, to be an answer to a prayer that I have prayed for the president repeatedly.

Father, the condition of our schools and families is so broken that nothing seems to be working, especially for the poor in our urban centers. Help our president to have the courage to use his amazing place of influence to speak into this situation in such a way that boys and girls would take their studies seriously and put school above sport and homework above hiphop and graduation above gangs.

And as the President plans his speech, help him to feel as helpless as he really is to meet the greatest needs of the children, so that he turns to Jesus who alone has the answer for the ruin and the wrongs of our cities. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

I hope my daughter hears the speech.