Day of Prayer Reminds Why We Must Defend Religious Freedom

On May 5th, millions of Americans will join together to pray for our nation. As we gather for the National Day of Prayer, it’s a time to reflect on how privileged we are to live in a country where we can freely exercise our beliefs.

For many people of faith around the world, they are not given the same opportunities. Yet, more recently, we are seeing threats to religious freedom in America.

This National Day of Prayer, while we ask God to bless our nation, we must also continue to pray and stand up for the protection of our constitutional rights.

The Supreme Court’s reviewing of the case of Joseph Kennedy, a football coach fired for praying after games, illuminates how our endowed rights are continually under threat.

In an interview with ESPN, Kennedy discussed how he would give God the glory after every game at the 50-yard line. When students asked to join him in prayer, he responded by saying, “It’s a free country; this is America, you can do whatever you want.”

For Kennedy, a private moment of reverence to God soon would be scrutinized and cost him his job. We should never have to compromise our faith for our livelihood.

After all, prayer was foundational in the ratification of the U.S. Constitution.

In 1787, while addressing President George Washington at the Constitutional Convention, Benjamin Franklin said, “In the beginning of the contest with Great Britain, when we were sensible of danger, we had daily prayer in this room for the Divine protection. Our prayers, sir, were heard, and they were graciously answered.”

Franklin questioned if as a country we had forgotten God, and he dismissed the idea of “establishing Governments of Human Wisdom.” Franklin asked, going forward, that prayers “imploring the assistance of Heaven, and its blessings on our deliberations” would be a part of their Assembly every morning.

Franklin, like many of our Founding Fathers, recognized the gravity of asking for divine intervention for our nation.

Before we would become an independent nation, in 1774, the House of Burgesses (the first legislative assembly in the American colonies) would proclaim a day of prayer and fasting. When American civil rights were threatened, and they were on the verge of the American Revolution, prayer was critical.

National days of praying and fasting were continued to be called for by the Continental Congress in 1775, and later by several presidents including George Washington, John Adams and Abraham Lincoln.

In March of 1863, proclaiming a day for national prayer and humiliation, President Abraham Lincoln said, “We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace, and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us; and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own.”

Similar to Franklin, President Lincoln understood that God had preserved and strengthened America during arduous times.

Where would our great nation be today if prayer had been removed from our inception?

Centuries later, standing on the footsteps of the U.S. Capitol building in 1952, in front of an audience of 40,000, Billy Graham would petition our leaders to recognize the significance of prayer.

Graham said, “What a thrilling, glorious thing it would be to see the leaders of our country today kneeling before Almighty God in prayer. What a thrill would sweep this country. What renewed hope and courage would grip the Americans at this hour of peril.”

Graham’s call to prayer would lead to the establishment of the National Day of Prayer that same year. In the proclamation, President Harry Truman would acknowledge that “from the earliest days of our history our people have been accustomed to turn to Almighty God for help and guidance.”

The intentions of early colonies and presidents should inspire us on this National Day of Prayer. As we have done for hundreds of years, we must continue to thank God for everything He has given us and to ask Him for guidance for our nation.

As 1 John 5:14 to 15 says, “This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us — whatever we ask — we know that we have what we asked of him.”

While we join together this May 5th, let us not forget that our freedom to pray is a gift and constitutional right that we must protect. May we ask God to give us the strength to endure any threats against it.

And may we continue to pray for God’s sovereignty, guidance and blessings on our great country. As we have seen throughout history, prayer is vital for our nation to flourish.