“The Prayer at Valley Forge” by Arnold Friberg

Today is the National Day of Prayer, and it is important to remember the role prayer has played in American History. As we consider the Patriot Quotes below, be sure to find a National Day of Prayer event near you and participate. Also, be sure to read A Prayer for America and download our FREE Prayer Guide. Also, today is the last day for the special offer on Kindle and Nook editions of American Psalms: Prayers for the Christian Patriot (also available in print edition). Check it out here.

The National Day of Prayer is unique because it’s the one day that our government asks us to pray. It is the one day that the highest authority in our land gives specific prayer requests. What a great witness to the world (and to our government officials) it would be if they see God respond to the prayer requests of our president because Christian Patriots were willing to humble themselves to the authority of our nation and the authority of Heaven on the same day! In his 2013 National Day of Prayer Proclamation  President Obama has made some very specific prayer requests for the nation:

“On this day, let us remember in our thoughts and prayers all those affected by recent events, such as the Boston Marathon bombings, the Newtown, Connecticut shootings, and the explosion in West, Texas. Let us pray for the police officers, firefighters, and other first responders who put themselves in harm’s way to protect their fellow Americans. Let us also pray for the safety of our brave men and women in uniform and their families who serve and sacrifice for our country. Let us come together to pray for peace and goodwill today and in the days ahead as we work to meet the great challenges of our time.”  [Read President Obama's full NDOP Proclomation]

Although the National Day of Prayer did not become an annual event until 1952 when President Truman signed a joint resolution of Congress, the idea of a National Day of Prayer and Fasting has actually existed longer than the nation itself. In 1775 the Continental Congress petitioned the people to pray as we formed our new country. Since then, many presidents have called the people of America to pray for the nation.

Here are a few Patriot Quotes to inspire you during today’s National Day of Prayer gatherings:

Washington’s Prayer at Valley Forge, 
engraving by John C. McRae

There’s a great deal we can learn from George Washington’s personal prayer life, but he also made several declarations of national prayer and thanksgiving including this proclamation on January 1, 1795:

“It is in an especial manner our duty as a people, with devout reverence and affectionate gratitude, to acknowledge our many and great obligations to Almighty God, and to implore Him to continue and confirm the blessings we experienced.”

John Adams also called for a national day of prayer and fasting March 6, 1799:

“I have thought proper to recommend, and I hereby recommend accordingly, that Thursday, the twenty-fifth day of April next, be observed throughout the United States of America as a day of solemn humiliation, fasting and prayer; that the citizens on that day abstain, as far as may be, from their secular occupation, and devote the time to the sacred duties of religion, in public and in private; that they call to mind our numerous offenses against the most high God, confess them before Him with the sincerest penitence, implore his pardoning mercy, through the Great Mediator and Redeemer, for our past transgressions, and that through the grace of His Holy Spirit, we may be disposed and enabled to yield a more suitable obedience to his righteous requisitions in time to come; that He would interpose to arrest the progress of that impiety and licentiousness in principle and practice so offensive to Himself and so ruinous to mankind; that He would make us deeply sensible that ‘righteousness exalteth a nation but sin is a reproach to any people’ (Proverbs 14:34)”

After the Union Army was defeated at the Battle of Bull Run, President Lincoln declared a National Day of Prayer and Fasting September 26, 1861, saying:

“It is fit and becoming in all people, at all times, to acknowledge and revere the Supreme Government of God; to bow in humble submission to his chastisement; to confess and deplore their sins and transgressions in the full conviction that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom; and to pray, with all fervency and contrition, for the pardon of their past offenses, and for a blessing upon their present and prospective action…”

Two months after the Emancipation Proclamation was signed, Abraham Lincoln called for another day of national prayer. His proclamation began:

“Whereas, the Senate of the United States devoutly recognizing the Supreme Authority and just government of Almighty God in all the affairs of men and of nations, has, by resolution, requested the President to designate and set apart a day for national prayer and humiliation…”

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© Joshua J. Masters and American Psalms, 2012.
Quotes Source: America’s God and Country Encyclopedia of Quotations by William J. Federer, Photo Credit: Wikimedia Public Domain Collection