Thursday is National Day of Prayer, and across the nation believers will be urged to pray on behalf of the president and the troops overseas.

It is always appropriate to pray that God will give wisdom to our elected representatives, and vitally necessary that we pray for the safe return of our soldiers.

In offering our petitions we should remember the insight found in Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn: ?You can't pray a lie.? Nor should we pray for the success of ventures that are rooted in lies. That description unmistakably applies to the Iraq War.

The administration clearly knew that Saddam's regime was not as an imminent threat to our country in 2003. It no longer tries to maintain the pretense that the war had anything to do with a fearsome arsenal of nuclear and other unconventional weapons. President Bush has admitted on the record that Saddam had no role in the 9-11 attack.

Unjust war is a grave sin. We should pray that our representatives will have the wisdom and humility to end this war and quickly restore our troops to their families.