The National Day of Prayer

The National Day of Prayer is a part of our nation's heritage!

Prayer is the mainspring of the American spirit, a fundamental tenet of our people since before the Republic was founded. A year before the Declaration of Independence, in 1775, the Continental Congress proclaimed the first National Day of Prayer as the initial positive action they asked of every colonist. . . . It took the tragedy of the Civil War to restore a National Day of Prayer. As Abraham Lincoln said, "Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us." . . . From General Washington's struggle at Valley Forge to the present, this Nation has fervently sought and received divine guidance as it pursued the course of history. . . .

Ronald Reagan, "National Day of Prayer, 1983: A Proclamation."
Facsimile Courtesy of the White House found in The Bible and the Constitution.
Compiled by Verna Hall and Rosalie Slater, Chesapeake, VA: FACE, 1983, XXV.

As we pursue this generation's course of history, we can overcome today's national trials as we have before: through fervent prayer.

Grace and Peace,

Ed