328 - 250 Years of America!
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America turns 250 this month, and I have a lot of feelings about that, but the one that rises to the top is gratitude. I am so grateful to be an American. Today I am celebrating this country I love: her freedoms, her heritage, her beauty, and the God who has been with her from the very beginning.
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Happy July, friend! Happy birthday, America! 250 years. I just sit with that number for a moment because it is remarkable. Most of human history, across most of the world, has been marked by oppression, darkness, and power-hungry rulers who held the people under their thumb. Very little freedom, very little room to dream or create the life that you want, or to build something, or to speak freely, or to worship Jesus. And 250 years ago, a group of ordinary men signed their names to a document that said, “We believe all men are created equal and we will fight for that”. They were not perfect men. They did not build a perfect country, but they built something the world had never seen before, something fragile, and bold and deeply rooted in the belief that our rights come from God, not from government. Now, I know there are plenty of reasons to be discouraged about America right now. I see them too. But today I do not want to go there. Today I want to celebrate. Because I think that we are in danger of losing our gratitude for what we have, and I never want to take it for granted for a single day. So today, I'm sharing 10 things that I love about America. Ten reasons that I am proud to celebrate her 250th birthday.
#1: American exceptionalism. I believe in American exceptionalism. And I do not say that out of arrogance. I say it because history bears it out. America has done things no nation in history has ever done. She has been a beacon of freedom for the entire world. The idea that a country could be founded on principles rather than on ethnicity or dynasty or conquest, that is exceptional and it's worth saying out loud. Rush Limbaugh spent decades explaining what this phrase actually means and what it doesn't. And he was emphatic, it does not mean that we are better people. It does not mean that we are smarter or more special or more qualified than anyone else in the world.
What it means, Maha Rushi said, “is something far more profound. America is where everybody wants to go to escape the way they have to live. And if America ceases to be that, that place of refuge, then there's no place left to escape to”. And that is the weight of it. That is why American exceptionalism matters. And that's why I'm proud of it.
#2: Freedom of speech. I get to say what I believe. I get to disagree with anyone, with the government, with popular opinion, with my neighbor. And I'm not going to be arrested for it. I'm not going to disappear. I'm not going to be silenced by law. Do we take that for granted? I think we do. So much of the world, even today, does not have this. And I am deeply grateful for it. Does it mean that we're also free to say hateful things? Yes. But I am determined to use my freedom of speech for building others up, for speaking truth, and for worship. And what a gift that is.
#3: Freedom of faith. I get to worship freely. I get to teach my children about Jesus without fear. I get to gather with my church family every Sunday without anyone threatening to shut us down. I get to build my entire life around my faith openly and without apology. That is not the reality for millions of people on the earth right now. It is a gift, and I want to treat it like one. Earlier this year, in February actually, I read the book of Love and Treason, which is a book about St. Valentine. Highly recommend it. It really showed me just how oppressive it was to live in Rome during the days of the early church. Back then, faith was a matter of life and death. If you chose to be a Christian, you knew you were risking your very life. And the courage they had and that they lived with day in and day out was inspiring. Today in America, we get to freely worship and follow Jesus and teach others about him, and not be afraid of losing our life. We don't realize it, but that is truly incredible.
#4: The rich heritage of faith in America's founding. This one matters to me deeply. America was not founded as a theocracy, but she was founded by people who overwhelmingly believed in the God of the Bible and drew on that foundation constantly. You cannot read the Declaration of Independence without encountering the Creator, divine providence, and the moral law that undergirds all of it. The faith of her founders is woven into her DNA, and I find that deeply encouraging. If you want to look into this more, The Founders Bible is a book written by David Barton. And it's one of the most thorough resources on our heritage. So David Barton is a historian and he documents how the founding fathers, men like George Washington, Patrick Henry, Benjamin Rush, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and Benjamin Franklin, established the foundations of this country firmly planted in the Word of God.
And believed that resistance to tyranny was a Christian duty because they were defending God-given rights. John Adams himself said “the general principles on which the fathers achieved independence were the general principles of Christianity. I will avow that I then believed and now believe those general principles of Christianity are as eternal and immutable as the existence and attributes of God.”
#5: The freedom to work and build. This one's personal for me. I get to do the work that God has called me to. I get to run a small business. I get to host this podcast. I get to create resources. I get to be a mom. I get to make my own schedule. I get to earn income. I get to provide some for my family all from my home in North Carolina. And that's amazing. And that freedom to build, to create, to pursue opportunity, that is one of America's greatest gifts.
Capitalism is a remarkable thing, and just because of the competition and freedom that we have in this capitalistic society, we actually get to improve the work that we're doing and challenge others to improve it the same, and it's like a rising tide that lifts all boats. The name of this podcast is Work and Play with Nancy Ray. And guess what? I don't get to work and play freely without America. We live in a country where we get to do both and we get to do them freely, and that's not something that I take lightly.
#6: America's ability to course correct. America is not perfect. She never has been. But one of the things I love about her is that she has the mechanisms to change, and she's used them. We have abolished slavery. We gave women the right to vote. We have a Supreme Court that overturned Roe v. Wade. These are not small things. These are monumental moral corrections. Now we still have a long way to go on many fronts, and we need to keep praying and fighting for what is right and true, but I am genuinely encouraged by our history of course correction. It gives me hope for what's still ahead.
#7: America has the most beautiful places to play. Can I just say this country is stunning? I think about New England in the fall and those breathtaking colors. I think about the crystal clear waters of the Gulf of America. I think about the cliffs and vineyards in California, the mountains of Colorado, the stunning views that I have seen in Utah, the Grand Canyon, and the sea to the mountains of North Carolina, which I am admittedly biased about. America is endlessly beautiful to explore and I never want to stop.
#8: America does more good than any other nation. We send more foreign aid, more missionaries, more disaster relief to other nations than any other country on earth. We produce wealth and innovation and resources, and then turn around and share them with the world. That does not get talked about enough. For all of her faults, America is generous. And that is a reflection of something genuinely good in her. Ali Beth Stuckey said, “Could the country that welcomes the most immigrants, has historically harbored the most refugees and asylum seekers, is the most generous, adopts the most orphans, provides the most foreign aid to countries in need than any other nation on earth, and twice helped save the world from tyranny really be as immoral as the critics claim? The simple answer is no.” America does amazing amounts of good.
#9: People risk everything to come here. This one moves me every single time I think about it. The stories that I have heard of people leaving their families, leaving their homes, leaving everything that they have known and risking their very lives to come here, it's remarkable. Because what we have is so rare and so valuable that it is worth everything to them. Freedom, opportunity, safety, the chance to build a life for their children. I never want to look at what we have and be ungrateful. Not for a single day. Just the other day, I was talking to the grandmother of one of my daughter's friends, and we were just chatting, and it was fun because we connected over our love of the Spanish language, and she was fluent in Spanish. And I was like, I didn't know you spoke Spanish, that's amazing. And she said, Yes, my parents came here. They brought me to this country from Cuba when I was just 12 years old. And she said, I just can't imagine their courage and I'm and their bravery. She explained that they picked up their entire lives, took their children, left everything behind for the hope of coming to America. This wasn't hundreds of years ago. This was her life. Like, I just had this conversation a few weeks ago, and she was sharing with me how her life changed forever because of her parents' bravery and her life and her kids' lives and now her grandkids' lives have changed forever because they wanted to live in America. They wanted freedom from the oppression that her family knew and lived for many, many years before they came here. And now everything is different for them. And she just kept saying, We don't know how good we have it. It's wonderful here. It's beautiful here. I'm so thankful to be here.
And lastly #10: A heritage of courage, sacrifice, faith, and freedom. America has a deep heritage of people who were willing to give up everything for something bigger than themselves. The founding generation and the soldiers of every generation since. These are worthy things to build a nation on, and I'm grateful that ours was. You know, I read stories to our kids now, fictional stories that include good versus evil, imagination, bravery, and usually they are in pursuit of something good or freedom or a better way of living or killing the bad guy or whatever. And the thing is, I'm realizing I'm reading these stories to them because I want those principles and that love of righteousness and doing the right thing and the love of freedom to be ingrained in them. But you know what's amazing? That's our history.
Courageous men and women throughout history who have stood up for what's right and pursued freedom. I am so grateful that courage, sacrifice, faith, and freedom are an actual part of our history as Americans, not some fairy tale. And I hope that I'll remember that and be grateful for that today, and that my kids will understand that fully one day too. That is a legacy that I'm proud to be a part of.
Is America perfect? No. Is she broken in many ways right now? Yes. Is she divided and struggling and in desperate need of revival? Absolutely. But she is also still, by God's grace, a remarkable country. And as she turns 250, I want to celebrate what she is and what she's given us because it is genuinely exceptional.
One of my favorite things to do on the Fourth of July is read the Declaration of Independence, the whole thing. It's kind of long, so you’ve got to commit. But I really do encourage you to read the same thing. Read it out loud or read it to your kids and let the words remind you of what was at stake and what was won. I'm not gonna read the whole thing to you today, but I'm gonna read this one part that you probably heard before, but these words still ring true and they're amazing. This is from the Declaration of Independence, and it says, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”.
Happy 250th America. You have made it far. May God continue to be gracious to you, and may we never take for granted the blessings of liberty we have been given.
Thanks for listening to episode 328 of Work and Play with Nancy Ray. Everything I've mentioned today can be found in the show notes at nancyray.com/podcast/328. And you can find me at nancyray.com or follow me at Nancy Ray on Instagram. I'm going to close with words from Ronald Reagan who said, “Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same.” Thanks for listening, happy Independence Day, and happy 250th birthday to America.
