One-on-One with Ronnie Floyd on the National Day of Prayer
“If we truly want unity and peace in America, we must return to God and remember that our highest calling is to love him and one another.”
Ed: A quick glance at the news tells us America is still struggling with division and polarization. From your perspective, what is the spiritual state of America?
Ronnie: I was recently reading a Gallup poll on the emotional state of America. Honestly, I wasn’t surprised the pollsters found that Americans are among the most stressed people in the world or that nearly half of the U.S. population — 45 percent — feel burdened by worry. I definitely wasn’t surprised to learn 1 in 5 Americans experienced a lot of anger last year. But I was surprised by one detail in the poll that in itself speaks volumes: despite an improving economy, Americans are more stressed, more worried and angrier than in years past.
The report says, “The disconnect between a strong economy and Americans' increasing negative emotions illustrates how GDP and other hard economic data only tell part of the story. In fact, the levels of negative emotions in the past several years are even higher than during the U.S. recession years.”
What this tells us is that happiness and personal fulfillment are not necessarily dependent on our circumstances. Being a pastor, this makes perfect sense to me. I’ve seen it in people’s lives, and I see it in America as a whole. I believe America’s political and social problems — all the division, hostility and polarization we see every day — are actually problems of the human heart, and fixing them requires a spiritual solution. If we truly want unity and peace in America, we must return to God and remember that our highest calling is to love him and one another.