During Jimmy Carter\u2019s presidency from 1977 to 1981, he faced down challenges in the Middle East, Panama and the Soviet Union, as well the energy crisis here in the United States.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s all in Carter\u2019s 2010 book, White House Diary<\/em>, a fascinating collection of the thoughts, observations and candid discussions about his faith that he recorded during his years in office.<\/p>\n According to Carter, it was the Iranian hostage situation that tested him the most. \u201cI prayed more during that year when the hostages were being held than I did any other time in my life,\u201d said Carter in a phone interview during his book tour. \u201cMy prayer was that every hostage would come home safe and free while I protected the interests of my country.\u201d Carter\u2019s prayers weren\u2019t answered as quickly as he\u2019d hoped; the hostages were released on his last day in office.<\/p>\n Carter also relied on prayer during his negotiations at Camp David with Egyptian president Anwar El Sadat and Isreali Prime Minister Menachem Begin. He had so much faith in the power of prayer, in fact, that on the first day Carter proposed that the three lead a world-wide prayer for peace. Sadat agreed immediately, and Begin eventually agreed after the three collaborated on the prayer\u2019s exact wording.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t doubt that millions of people in Israel, Egypt, in the Arab world and also in America prayed for peace,\u201d says Carter. The Israel-Egypt Peace Treaty was finally signed in 1979.<\/p>\n Carter\u2019s faith was so central to his life that, despite hectic presidential demands, he maintained spiritual practices that were important to him: teaching Sunday school and nightly Bible reading.<\/p>\n Carter began teaching Sunday school when he was just 18 and a midshipman at the Naval Academy\u2014and he has taught ever since. As president, he taught Bible lessons at the Baptist church nearest the White House, though the days he would be there were never announced for security reasons.<\/p>\n In 1970, Carter and his wife Rosalynn began the habit of ending each day by reading from the Bible. They took turns each night reading aloud, and when they were in different cities they read the same passage. Beginning in 2000, the couple read in Spanish, just to practice the language.<\/p>\n Though his faith gave him strength, Carter also found inspiration in the regular folks he met thanks to the human rights-focused Carter Center he founded and his work with Habitat for Humanity.<\/p>\n \u201cWe see the bright side of things and the blessings that God gives so many people,\u201d he said. \u00a0\u201cI would say the most impressive thing I\u2019ve learned is how similar people are all over the world. A lot of times we tend to underestimate people who don\u2019t have a decent home or don\u2019t have a good education for their kids, who can\u2019t provide for healthcare, or don\u2019t have a regular job. But as we work side-by-side with these people, say, building a Habitat (for Humanity) house, always we find those poor families\u2026are just as smart as I am, just as ambitious, just as hard-working, and their family values are just as good as mine…So we\u2019ve learned a lot about how varied God\u2019s blessings are and how worthy people are and how equal we are in the eyes of God.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" During Jimmy Carter\u2019s presidency from 1977 to 1981, he faced down challenges in the Middle East, Panama and the Soviet Union, as well the energy crisis here in the United States. It\u2019s all in Carter\u2019s 2010 book, White House Diary, a fascinating collection of the thoughts, observations and candid discussions about his faith that he […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":74,"featured_media":30617,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[279],"tags":[],"ppma_author":[509],"class_list":["post-23955","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-holiday-prayers"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n