American Revolution Two

“May we all unite in rendering unto God our sincere and humble thanks…”
- George Washington, Thanksgiving Proclamation of 1789

America is great because her people are grateful. And we are grateful because of God’s goodness, mercy and providence – not only in the founding and shaping of our nation, but in the bounty and blessing available to us all. Out of this gratitude flows a generosity unmatched by previous nations of the world. Our people give more, per capita, than any other country in the world. Why? Because we give thanks to God, even in the darkest of times, and have since the very beginning.

Our first national day of Thanksgiving came in 1777 in the midst of our struggle for independence. The Continental Congress designated December 18 of that year “for solemn Thanksgiving and praise” for the Patriot army’s victory at Saratoga. It was a dark and uncertain time for our founding generation – yet they gave thanks.

America began a regular national thanksgiving day in 1863, in the midst of a terrible Civil War. President Lincoln proclaimed the last Thursday in November “a day of thanksgiving and praise to our beneficent Father.” And he did this just a few months after the dreadful loss of life at Gettysburg.

Succeeding presidents upheld Lincoln’s example, but it wasn’t until the dark days of WWII and the expanding evil of Nazism that Congress passed a law in 1941 officially declaring the fourth Thursday in November as America’s Thanksgiving Day.

These milestones of thanks came to light in some of our darkest and most trying days. 
It is fitting then, that we as a people, despite our current struggle against tyranny here and abroad, return to a posture of humble thanks and gratitude to God. Make no mistake about it: America is on the brink of total disaster, and if we have any hope of restoring the light of America’s freedom and its legacy of liberty, then we must unite in prayer to the God of our fathers. Do any of us really believe that America can be restored without a complete surrender to the heavens above? As Ronald Reagan said, “If we ever forget that we’re one nation under God, then we will be a nation gone under.”

I submit to you the following “Prayer for Meeting the Obligations of Freedom” as published in William J. Bennett’s  The American Patriot’s Almanac and written by The Reverend Peter Marshall, Chaplain of the U.S. Senate, 1947-49. We would do well to embrace and make this our own across the land. Liberty and free will is a gift from God. But the responsibility to keep it and preserve it for succeeding generations is ours, and ours alone…

“Our Father which art in heaven, we pray for all the people of our country, that we may learn to appreciate more the goodly heritage that is ours. We need to learn, in these challenging days, that to every right there is attached a duty and to every privilege an obligation. We believe that, in the eternal order of things, Thou has so ordained it, and what Thou has joined together let us not try to put asunder. Teach us what freedom is. May we all learn the lesson that it is not the right to do as we please, but the opportunity to please to do what is right. Above all, may we discover that wherever the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. May we have that freedom now, in His presence here, to lead us and to help us keep this nation free.”
Amen