When House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) was faced with the difficult decision about what to do with the contentious foreign aid bill for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, he responded with prayer.
Johnson returned to Washington, D.C., last Monday, and was met with attacks from some of his colleagues, CNN reports. In the midst of his decision making, Johnson has faced sharp criticism and threats to vacate him from his House speaker position.
That Tuesday night, as he wrestled with what the right path forward was, he turned to the Lord in prayer.
“He was torn between trying to save his job and do the right thing,” House Foreign Affairs Chairman Michael McCaul, a GOP colleague from Texas, said. “He prayed over it.”
Wednesday, Johnson was confident in his convictions and moved forward, despite the tumultuous climate on the House floor and the risk to his career.
“Even CNN reported how Speaker Mike Johnson came to his important decision about what to do in response to the funding bill for Israel and Ukraine,” Franklin Graham posted on Facebook. “Getting on our knees and asking God for His help and wisdom is always the right thing! Thank you, Speaker Johnson—we’re praying for you!”
Johnson professed faith in Christ when he was 7 years old. About five years later, his father, a firefighter, nearly died in an explosion that left him with only a 5% chance of survival. “But God saved my dad’s life,” Johnson told Tony Perkins on Washington Watch. “… and I just knew that prayer worked. So that’s never left me. It’s been with me my whole life.”
A $95 billion aid package for Israel, Ukraine and Taiwan passed in the House of Representatives on Saturday with support from 210 Democrats and 101 Republicans, and now heads to the Senate.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, a fellow Republican, has threatened a motion to vacate Johnson as speaker, which is supported by at least three other representatives.
On Wednesday, Johnson said, “My philosophy is do the right thing and let the chips fall where they may. If I operated out of fear over a motion to vacate, I would never be able to do my job. Look, history judges us for what we do. This is a critical time right now.”
“I could make a selfish decision and do something that is different,” he added, “but I’m doing here what I believe to be the right thing.”
After the vote, Democrats on the House floor began waving Ukrainian flags, which Johnson confronted. “We should only wave one flag on the House floor. And I think we know which flag that is,” he said.
“If you’re doing your best, as flawed as you are,” Johnson told Perkins, “to operate in accordance with God’s principles, and to do what is right and good for the people, then God blesses that. And it takes the responsibility, in some measure, off your shoulders. As John Quincy Adams famously said, ‘Duty is ours. Results are God’s.’”
