It’s easy to think that the American colonists were united during the Revolutionary War. Nothing could be further from the truth. Many colonists hated British control but vehemently opposed the idea of war.
Among those was a Quaker named Isaac Potts. He was an outspoken critic of the Continental Army and the Revolutionary War. As Potts surveyed his estate near Valley Forge, he was enraged to find patriot soldiers camped on his property. He searched for officers so he could file an official complaint. But what he found was a lone officer kneeling in the forest. As he approached, Potts discovered the man was fervently praying for his soldiers and the nation.
The officer was General George Washington. The scene so moved Potts that he immediately declared his allegiance to the Revolution despite his long-held Quaker beliefs of nonviolence. This scene inspired the painting “Prayer at Valley Forge” that now hangs in the Museum of the Bible in Washington, D.C.
That was not the last time George Washington would invoke prayer on behalf of the new nation. In a farewell address to state governors at the end of the War for Independence, Washington petitioned God for the protection of the nation. When Congress signed the Bill of Rights in 1789, then-President Washington declared to Congress “the duty of all nations to acknowledge the Providence of Almighty God” and recommended a national day of thanksgiving and prayer.
George Washington was not only an effective military and political leader, but he was a great spiritual leader. Prayer was always his priority, and he set the tone for the nation, inspiring the American people to seek Almighty God in times of adversity and victory.
Washington set a good example, and throughout history, U.S. leaders have called for national prayer during times of crisis. During the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln urged prayer for national healing. In World War II, Presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry Truman declared days of prayer for divine intervention in the two-front conflict. In 1952, amid the Korean War, Truman established an annual National Day of Prayer to renew the nation’s commitment to seeking divine guidance.
The history of our great nation is not without blemishes, scars, and missteps, but along the way, we have been guided by devoted leaders who encouraged citizens to pray. In recent years, however, our nation has experienced a scarcity of this kind of leadership.
As it stands now, it’s been over two decades since a president petitioned the nation to our knees during a crisis. Not since the devastation of Hurricane Katrina and President George W. Bush have we had a commander-in-chief who urged the American people to pray.
During those 22 years, we have experienced numerous national tragedies. And now, we are sharply divided in a way we have not seen since the 1960s. Violence seems to have replaced peace. We are living in a time when we desperately need to bend our knees and humble ourselves under the mighty hand of God.
Now more than ever, we need a leader with the fortitude and resolve to encourage all Americans to continually lift our nation in prayer and seek the face of God.
Many could not have foreseen that Donald Trump would be that kind of leader. A reality TV star and billionaire from New York City would hardly have been my first guess as the leader calling our nation back to its knees. But God often has a way of using people we don’t expect in ways we could never fathom.
The fact remains that President Trump is the first president in decades to urge America to return to an intentional life of prayer. Earlier this year, the president declared (emphasis added): “As we prepare to celebrate two and a half centuries of freedom, I am inviting America’s great religious communities to pray for our nation and for our people. From the beginning, this has always been a country sustained and strengthened by prayer. So important, if we bring religion back stronger, you’re going to see everything get better and better and better. You are going to see it get better and better. So, as we chart our course for the next 250 years, let us rededicate ourselves to one nation under God.”
With this statement, President Trump birthed an initiative never seen in our long history. His initiative, America Prays, urges all Americans to rededicate our nation to dependence on God and express that dependence by submitting ourselves to His hands through prayer. In another unprecedented action, the White House website has an entire page dedicated to the America Prays initiative. The page gives instructions, resources, and ideas to help Americans fulfill this call. It also provides historic prayers from the likes of Washington, Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Apollo space program, which changed the direction of the nation.
