There are mixed feelings and opinions among Christians as to how much, how little, or if any at all allegiance and support is to be given to their country. Let me share the following with you written by Dr. Gardiner Spring (1785-1872). “True patriotism originates in the love of God, and flows out in love to man. It concentrates in the love of country when God, and man, and rectitude unite in exciting the ardor of its attachment, and in demanding its sacrifices. It is a sacred and religious emotion. It finds utterance, not in the speeches of demagogues (a leader who obtains power by appealing to the emotions and prejudices of the populace), but in the lessons of experience and wisdom. It has power with God as well as with man; it is a flame, which burns brightest on God’s altars. “Would you see it personified, look at Daniel when he set his face toward the Lord God to seek by prayer and supplication, with fasting and sackcloth and ashes, the welfare of the land he loved. In strains the most humble and affecting, he acknowledges her departures from God, her gross disobedience, her contempt of his prophets, and the perfect justice of her dispersion and exile [Daniel 9]. This was true patriotism. And when he so tenderly pleads for her, and beseeches the God of heaven that his anger and his fury may be turned away from his holy mountain and the city that is called by His name, who does not see in all this the heart of a patriot? “History tells us that when on the battlefield against Charles of Burgundy, the entire army of the patriotic Swiss prostrated themselves on the ground in prayer. It is recorded also of the Duke of Marlborough, that he never led his troops to battle without first marshalling them for prayer. This was patriotism. And never did that great man who was “first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen (President George Washington),” furnish a more affecting proof of his love of his country, than when on the eve of battle he was found in his tent upon his knees. “The boasting patriot who deifies his country and never prays for her has no such love to her as is recognized in heaven.” I would add a thought of my own. I deeply love my country. I pray for it daily. Above all things I pray for its return to the one true God. I pray for the revival of the foundational principles upon which it was established, for the acknowledgment that God (Jehovah) alone is the cause of our existence as a free nation. One of the most beautiful studies of divine providence is the study of the history of the discovery, settling, and development of this country, from the voyage of Columbus to the American Revolution. God has truly “Blessed America.” May He continue to do so! “Long may our land be bright With freedom’s holy light Protect us by Thy might, Great God, our King.”
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