Glenn Beck: Obama's stolen prayer

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July 29, 2008 - 12:39 ET

GLENN: I read an editorial about Obama's pilfered prayer note. Did you see the prayer note that he wrote and stuck in the wall?

STU: I did hear about it but I didn't --

GLENN: Do you not know about it?

STU: I do not know about it.

GLENN: Okay. You're not supposed to take those out of the wall, all right? It's very taboo. You don't take those out of the wall and then read them. Well, somebody took his out of the wall and then gave it to the press, okay? Yeah. This is what he wrote. Stationery from the King David Hotel. "Lord, protect my family and me. Forgive me my sins. Help me guard against pride and despair. Give me wisdom to do what is right and just. And make me an instrument of your will." That's pretty good, huh? No, seriously.

STU: It is very good.

GLENN: It's a very good, it's a very good prayer.

STU: But it's taboo to even take them out of the wall.

GLENN: And print them in the paper, it's got to be even worse than taboo.

STU: I mean, it seems kind of disrespectful.

GLENN: Uh-huh. So this guy, Halil Hulkin (ph), says that he was over one time with his kid over in Jerusalem and they went to the tomb of Rachel in Bethlehem which is very, very sacred, you know, to Jewish, members of the Jewish faith. And basically if you are a woman, it doesn't get any better than Rachel. And so he brought his daughter to Rachel and to her tomb and there stuck all in the walls were prayers just like at the wailing wall or the Western Wall now. And so he was talking to his daughter and she -- and he said, you know, look, those are all prayers. And his daughter said, what do people pray for? And he said, all kinds of things. She said, what kind? He said, all kinds. The only way we would know is to read what they've written. And they looked at each other and the daughter said, "Well, we can't do that." And he said, "If we take their prayers, how will God answer them?" And he said, "God is a fast reader. He knows what the prayer is. He doesn't need to read these." And so he looked at them for a while and he was curious and he said in his editorial, he's very ashamed of doing this. It was 30 years ago. He was very ashamed of doing this. But what he did is he was there alone with the prayers tucked in and so he took them. He just grabbed a handful of them and stuffed them in his pocket and was like, let's find out what people pray for, okay? Very unethical. Really not cool to do. But as he was driving home, they were talking about what are these prayers going to say. What do people pray for. What do you think people prayed for?

Here's what he wrote down. Dear God, may my daughter-in-law get pregnant. Lord, help me lose 40 pounds. Master of the universe, cure my husband of his illness. May the holy one blessed make my sister pass her driver's test. He said, we got a few into it and my daughter said, Dad, can you read Little House on the Prairie to me? She was so bored because there was nothing there. They were not -- they were not beautiful, they were not eloquent. They were, Lord, can you help me with this test, can you help me with this problem, can you help me lose weight, can you help me do this. There's nothing there. They are not eloquent. They are regular people asking for regular things on regular topics. Now, when I first saw this written on, you know, King David Hotel stationery and the way it was written was so poetic, I thought, hmmm, does that seem like something that you wrote knowing that somebody might take it out and it might get out? Or is this an honest prayer? I don't know and I don't want to judge the man. I don't know the man. Only God knows the man's heart. But what a beautiful prayer he penned there at the King David Hotel and then put in the Western Wall for a few minutes before somebody took it out and published it.

This writer says, "If I could pray to God, I'd concentrate on the things I most wanted. Anything else would seem to me hypocritical. Indeed what does it mean for a candidate for the presidency of America to ask to be an instrument of God's will, that he hopes God is a Democrat, that he believes God is a discernible position on offshore drilling or is it simply a way for wishing that God would make himself an instrument of Mr. Obama's will just as the women in Bethlehem who wanted him to help her succeed on her diet. Help me guard against pride, wrote Mr. Obama in his prayer. Is there anywhere pride is more dangerous than a -- than when concealed in the aspiration of being an instrument of God. Had Mr. Obama written instead, "Oh, Lord, I'm just a poor foolish human being; I'd sure love to be President and I'd appreciate any assistance you can give me," I'd actually feel closer to him. Poor foolish human beings is what all of us really are.