MY FRIEND Bill in Little Rock took Tuesday off to watch the inauguration of Barack Obama.

When the election result was announced he had phoned me in tears, believing that his nation had been given a new start. My friend used to lecture over here in American politics and he never thought he would ever see a black president. He is white and, as a young man in the Southern States, had turned his back on Christianity because he thought it was racist.

Where he was brought up it was racist, but through our friendship he met Christians who fought for justice and for change. He learned that Christianity at its best, when it is most like Jesus, is the champion of the poor and oppressed. He rediscovered the tradition of Martin Luther King and found his faith again.

Now he is praying for Barack Obama, seeing his election as the culmination of all that Dr King fought (and died) for.

We also should pray for President Obama. He has an unbelievable load of expectations on his shoulders at home, and across the world.

The Bible teaches that we should pray for the leaders of the nations. Perhaps, the world would be in a better state if we always prayed for them before we ever criticised them; and if we always prayed for them more than we criticise them.

President Obama is a hugely optimistic man who believes that things can be different, that the world can be better. His slogan is ‘Yes we can’ - we can change.

The world can change, not because there is a new generation in the White House, or even because of the first black president, but because God has created a world in which change can happen.

This is a world in which we do sometimes see things we had believed we would never see. For Christians this capacity for new beginnings is rooted not in political trends but in the resurrection of Jesus. The resurrection was the time when world history turned an unexpected corner.

God’s new creation began in the midst of the old broken one and continues to appear in the most unexpected places. So Obama is right. But he is right because of the God of resurrection in whom both he and Martin Luther King, and Bill believe. +Graham 01/ 09