This
holiday weekend, Americans will consume 150 million hot dogs. Laid end
to end, they would stretch from Los Angeles to Washington, D.C. We will
also consume 700 million pounds of chicken. We will spend $152 million
on chips and dip and $203 million on condiments.
And we will sing, "God Bless America." At baseball games and parades and
concerts. As we celebrate today the 240th birthday of this nation we
love, let's ask ourselves: Why has God blessed America?
A scholar from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences told a group of
Westerners in 2002 that his group was "asked to look into . . . what
accounted for the success, in fact, the pre-eminence of the West all
over the world." After dismissing views that our success was tied to our
military, politics, or economic system, they concluded: "the heart of
your culture is your religion: Christianity. That is why the West has
been so powerful. The Christian moral foundation of social and cultural
life was what made possible the emergence of capitalism and then the
successful transition to democratic politics. We don't have any doubt
about this."
When Christopher Columbus set foot on land in the New World, these were
his first words: "Blessed be the light of day, and the Holy Cross we
say; and the Lord of Verity, and the Holy Trinity."
The first set of written laws for the New World was the Mayflower
Compact, ratified in 1620. Some have called it "the first American
Constitution." John Quincy Adams called it the foundation of the U.S.
Constitution.
The Compact states that the Pilgrims came to the New World "for the
Glory of God, and Advancement of the Christian Faith." They made their
covenant "in the Presence of God." According to William Bradford, their
governor, when the Pilgrims came ashore "they fell upon their knees and
blessed the God of Heaven who had brought them over the vast and furious
ocean."
Next came the "Fundamental Orders" of 1639, the first written
Constitution in the New World. Its preamble states the colonists'
purpose: "To maintain and preserve the liberty and purity of the Gospel
of our Lord Jesus which we now profess."
Scripture promises: "Blessed is the nation whose God is the LORD" (Psalm
33:12). "Blessed" translates a Hebrew word meaning, "to be so blessed
as to be envied by others." Every nation makes someone or something its
god. But when we make our God the one true Lord of the universe, we
position ourselves to be blessed by his grace.
Our Father will bless any nation whose people seek his favor: "Behold,
the eye of the LORD is on those who fear him, on those who hope in his
steadfast love" (Psalm 33:18). But as with the first Americans, we must
choose to seek what his love intends to give.
The greatest gift we can give our nation is to help her citizens be
people God can bless. So let's choose to reverence God and place our
hope in his love. Let's pray for others to do the same. And let's pray
what we sing: "God bless America." Today and every day, to the glory of
our Lord.
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