by Rhoda Barnhart
Verse: ”Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord…” Psalm 33:12
Topic: “One Nation Under God”
The 4th of July is coming up—a holiday—time for fireworks, parades, picnics, swimming, boating, camping—got your plans made?
It seems, in my youth, we used to call it Independence Day—which gives a clue to what is being celebrated. The Declaration of Independence was adopted by the Continental Congress on July 4, 1776, and a new nation—the United States of America was formed.
I’ve been pondering the wisdom and faith of our Founding Fathers who wrote: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights….”
Our forefather’s faith in God, our Creator, is well documented. Below are some examples:
On the East side of the top of the Washington Monument are the Latin words: Laus Deo: ‘Praise be to God’, a fitting reflection of George Washington’s deep conviction that the securing and maintaining of American liberty is owed to divine blessing, for which all Americans should humbly give thanks.
One of 3 panels in the Jefferson Memorial that refer to God is taken from Jefferson’s 1785 notes on the State of Virginia. It reads: “God who gave us life gave us liberty. Can the liberties of a nation be secure when we have removed a conviction that these liberties are the gift of God? Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just, that His justice cannot sleep forever.”
President John Adams, soon after moving into the White House in 1800, wrote these words to his wife. “I pray to heaven to bestow the best of blessings on this house and all that hereafter inhabit it. May none but the honest and wise men ever rule under this roof.” President Franklin Roosevelt later discovered Adams’ words and had them carved into the stone fireplace in the State Dining Room below a portrait of Abraham Lincoln
President Lincoln’s Gettysburg address ended with this closing prayer: “We here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, and for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”
There are a multitude of additional examples of the belief in God that shaped America’s history. I strongly believe that we need to keep praying to God for our country’s future.
So—Please celebrate our nation’s independence on Saturday, the 4th, and express your gratitude to God during worship at Springdale UMC at 9:30 am on July 5th.
Prayer: Almighty God, we are grateful that your benevolence led our Founders to create our nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Please grant today’s voters and leaders the courage and perseverance to protect our Constitution and preserve our nation as a nation of God. Amen.
Note: the examples above, and more, can be found in “Rediscovering God in America” by Newt Gingrich.
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