Celebrating the Birth of a Nation

If for a moment we can change our focus from hotdogs, watermelon, and fireworks, we will remember that July the Fourth is a national holiday because on that date in 1776 a Declaration of Independence was approved by the Second Continental Congress. While we know that 56 delegates affixed their name to this document, history shows that only 12 to 34 (depending on whose history you read) signed on July 4th. The others signed on August 2nd or about then.

What do you remember about this document? Most of us had to memorize at least a portion of it in Civics class or in an American History class. Some of us even had to recite what we had memorized. Many of us know that it was a document to declare the original thirteen colonies to be independent of the Kingdom of Great Britain. We may also know that the document did not make independence automatic. A war, referred to as the Revolutionary War, followed. General George Washington was our commanding general and eventually our first President.

After the war, a constitution was written in 1787, ratified in 1788, and put into place as the basis of our government in 1789. The first ten additions to the Constitution are referred to as the Bill of Rights and were largely penned by James Madison.

That is probably more history than you either wanted or expected in this post. But it is important that we remember the basis of who we are as a nation holds these two documents as our solid foundation.

Our founding fathers included at least four references to God in the Declaration of Independence in such phrases as "endowed by their Creator" and "Nature's God." However, when you read the writings and speeches of these early statesmen, there is a common thread that is found regardless of their particular understandings of God and spiritual truths. They saw that the future of this young nation would be dependent upon people of moral integrity, people who held to spiritual truth, and that religion would help to stablize the structure set forth in the Constitution.

Today, I wonder and pray if the people our forefathers believed were mandatory for the growth and survival of this nation are willing to step out in our day and give the dignified and moral leadership that we desparately need. I sense that we are in short, visible supply of such people taking on the roles of major leadership for our nation. That doesn't have to be your opinion, but it is mine.

I believe our hope is found only in God who is Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer of all life. There is a verse in the Bible that is often quoted but seldom followed. I print it here in the hope and prayer that our trust and obedience to God might become the strength that our nation needs today to be the people of the 21st Century that our forefathers risked everything for in the 18th Century.

"and if My People who are called by My name humble

themselves and pray and seek My face and turn from their

wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, will forgive

their sin and will heal their land."

2 Chronicles 7:14 (NASB)

I hope you have a great week and a true celebration of all that has gone before us and the acceptance of the responsibility that is ours today.