Why do we always wait to pray until it's the only thing we CAN do?

Everyone knew last November that this election was more important than previous elections of at least one major reason.

The appointment of new judges to the Supreme Court is both so rare and so crucial that we all – on both sides – wanted to make sure the man in office when time to do so rolled around was the right one.

Now, we Bush-supporters got our president – and we support him still – but many are now concerned that our confidence in his ability to choose the right Supreme Court justice was misplaced.

I won’t get into the argument about elitism. No one’s being elitist when they say they’d like someone a bit more experienced and knowledgeable than Harriet Miers. Obviously we need the best person possible to fill a position so crucial. The Supreme Court has the power to uphold or rewrite the constitution (whether it should have that much power is a different argument entirely) and as we have seen in other judges, that power can be and often is mightily abused.

“When a vacancy on the Court occurs, the president has a solemn duty to nominate the best and the brightest. He should choose not only strict constructionists, but those who can hold their own against the liberal activist justices who are steadily rewriting the Constitution and removing, brick by brick, its foundation,” said David Limbaugh in his (infinitely better informed and written) column.

He pointed out that the same people accusing opponents of Miers’ nomination as elitists would feel differently about choosing the best possible lawyer to defend them in court. “If they deserve the best in their individual struggles, don't all Americans in their collective struggle to remain free?”

But all that is kind of a side point.

We could debate all day whether Miers is the best person for the job and it wouldn’t accomplish anything. The president has made his intentions clear and it seems at this point (at least to me) that her nomination is inevitable.

So what action are we left with? To pray fervently for Miers that if she is not capable of the job that she will become so. That she will rise to the challenge and defy expectations on both sides.

Thank God for being sovereign. We may not be able to change the decision to put her on the Supreme Court. We can, however, if we believe in the power of prayer as I do, impact the way in which she fills those large shoes.

If she is going to be in such a public and powerful position, she is going to be under attack. It is our duty to uphold her in prayer and it is the most powerful thing we can do - infinitely more powerful, in fact, than any decision or ruling she or anyone else can make.