You name it – politics, sports, economics, medicine, weather, religion, war and anything else you wish to mention – and you are in for a surprise when you read the newspaper or listen to the news.

I am writing this column on Friday the 13th. I do hope inclinations toward superstitions did not ruin your day. Superstition is an irrational fear that is based on delusion and false beliefs. Edmund Burke called it “The religion of feeble minds.”

For example, when I thought he was through with such unpredictable things, President George H.W. Bush, made another parachute jump on his 90th birthday, June 12, at Kennebunkport, Maine. There to cheer him on, or help pick up the pieces, were his wife, Barbara, and son, President George W. Bush. They congratulated this remarkable man.

Appearing on the comic page of the Charleston Gazette (W.Va.) each day is the “Today In History” column provided by The Associated Press. I enjoy that more than any of the comics. On June 13, it recorded, “In 1927, aviation hero Charles Lindberg was honored with a ticker-tape parade in New York City.” The last of seven historic events listed stated, “In 1983, the U.S. space probe Pioneer 10, launched in 1972, became the first spacecraft to leave the solar system as it crossed the orbit of Neptune.” I wonder who accurately predicted this would happen.

In this month’s newsletter from the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, my long-time friend, Franklin Graham, wrote, “Eighty years ago this month, a group of businessmen gathered under a grove of shade trees at the edge of a pasture for a prayer meeting. They had met several times before at different locations around their hometown of Charlotte, N.C. – always outdoors – to pray for revival in their city, revival across their state and revival to the ends of the earth.”

“My father, Billy Graham, who was only 15 years old, was at that moment in the barn doing after-school chores …. He did not learn of the pasture prayer until years later.”

Our nation, beginning with our town, city and county, needs businessmen and women, farmers and factory workers who will daily join in sincere prayer to Almighty God for revival to come again to our nation. We need spiritual leadership for a crumbling nation and world.