Last week, we talked about God’s role in establishing nations, noting that whether he does so in the strong sense of direct, providential initiative or in the weaker sense of providential permission, he still plays a part. Either way, it raises the question of why he did so. 

But unlike biblical revelation, identifying his reasons for birthing the nation of Israel, we have no such clear and conclusive answers for other nations, America included. We can debate the degree to which God created America in an initiatory providential sense, or we can at least agree that he allowed our nation to be born and has providentially used and redeemed her according to his kingdom purposes.

In addition, we can identify some ways he seems to have uniquely blessed our nation from her founding and across her history. For example, in American Exceptionalism: An Experiment in History, political scientist Charles Murray argues that our country is “exceptional” among the nations of the world in four ways:

1. Our geographical setting: the Atlantic Ocean as a buffer against Europe, peaceful neighbors to the north and south, and available lands to the west.
2. Our ideology: optimistic in the sense that all humans are created equal, but negative in the sense that checks and balances are needed to restrain autonomous power.
3. Our civic traits: industriousness, egalitarianism, religiosity, and community life.
4. Our politics: unlike Europe, our country has never experienced class warfare.

We can add the remarkable natural resources with which our country has been endowed:

• America possesses the largest coal reserves globally, which serve as a significant source for electricity and industrial applications.
• The US leads the world in oil production and consumption, largely sourced from states such as Texas and offshore in the Gulf of Mexico.
• We possess substantial reserves of natural gas, contributing to heating and electricity production.
• We have notable deposits of minerals such as copper, zinc, and uranium.
• Our fishing industry contributes significantly to the economy as well.
• North America benefits greatly from our fertile soils, plentiful fresh water, and forests. We experience greater climate variation than any other continent, which contributes to our diverse agricultural industries and explains our position as the world’s largest nation in terms of agricultural product trade.

All of this raises the pertinent and practical question: Why has God blessed America so abundantly?

How to receive what God’s grace intends to give

We should note that God loves all people and “shows no partiality” (Acts 10:34; Romans 2:11). As St. Augustine observed, he loves each of us as if there were only one of us. Our Father wants to bless his children, and he is “able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound to every good work” (2 Corinthians 9:8).

But a holy God cannot bless that which is unholy; a loving Father cannot bless that which harms his children. Accordingly, we must position ourselves to receive what God’s grace intends to give.

In this light, then, we can look to our history to discern ways and reasons God has been able to bless our nation so abundantly. And we can also identify ways we have hindered and frustrated his providential best for our nation and people.

We’ll look at three such reasons next week, with an eye to understanding how God’s purposes in founding our nation speak to his purposes in allowing our nation to continue. But for now, let’s take some time to reflect on the nature of God’s blessings and what it means to live a life he can bless.

Blessed to be a blessing

One of the greatest disconnects between the biblical understanding of blessing and the way we often see it today pertains to its purpose. When God spoke to Abraham about making a great nation from his descendants, he did so with the promise that:

I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed (Genesis 12:2–3).

In short, God’s blessings for Abraham were never meant to stop with him. Rather, part of the Lord’s gift was the privilege of partnering in his work to share that gift with others. The blessing was incomplete until another was blessed by it as well. 

Is that how you think of God’s blessings today? More importantly, is that how you pray for God’s blessings today?

If a gift from the Lord would cause us to become more selfish, inwardly focused, or prideful, then he would not be a good Father to give it. And when we seek his blessings with ourselves as the only—or even primary—recipient, we’re far more likely to fall into that trap. 

One of the most consistently convicting passages in the Sermon on the Mount is when Jesus describes how even we know better than to give our children a stone when they ask for bread or a snake when they ask for fish (Matthew 7:7–11). In a day when the stones along the road often looked like bread and snakes were fished out of the lake alongside the fish, the analogy served as a good reminder that there are times when we need our heavenly Father to protect us from the deepest desires of our hearts. 

Learning to ask God to bless us so that we might be a blessing to others is one of the best ways to position ourselves to receive the gifts his grace longs to give. And what is true for us as individuals is true for our nation as well. If America’s Christians were more focused on being a blessing than receiving a blessing, we’d probably see a lot more of both. 

Will you make that your prayer today?  

Faith of the founders

Benjamin Rush and the sanctity of all human life

Dr. Benjamin Rush (1746–1813) is perhaps best known as Surgeon General to the Continental Army and a signer of the Declaration of Independence. But his motives for both are as relevant to us as they were to him.

He received his medical degree at the University of Edinburgh and became fluent in French, Italian, and Spanish before returning to the colonies in 1769. He wrote the first chemistry textbook published in America and also wrote treatises on medical education. He was especially concerned with mental illness, arguing that normal hospital settings and the opportunity for productive work were far more conducive to their recovery than the facilities that treated them more like criminals.

Rush was an ardent abolitionist, arguing on scientific grounds that black people are in no way inferior to white people. He sought to reform the prisons and championed education so passionately that he is considered the father of American public education. He was a major supporter of the American Sunday School Union and a strong advocate for women’s education, helping to found the Young Ladies Academy of Philadelphia.

In 1786, he opened the Philadelphia Dispensary, the first free walk-in health clinic in the US. An on-site apothecary compounded medicines of all kinds. Both the medicine and Rush’s time were given away at no charge, and the charity treated 8,000 patients in just its first five years. The model of the Philadelphia Dispensary spread to other cities, where it served as the model for providing care to the urban poor for generations.

Rush was one of the few physicians to remain in Philadelphia during the 1793 yellow fever outbreak, attending to more than 100 patients a day, even while suffering from the disease himself. He died at the age of sixty-seven when he contracted typhus while treating patients during the typhus epidemic of 1813.

Throughout his life, Dr. Rush’s compassion for others was motivated by his Christian faith and biblical worldview. With regard to independence, he wrote: “Every precept of the Gospel inculcates those degrees of humility, self-denial, and brotherly kindness, which are directly opposed to the pride of monarchy and the pageantry of a court.”

He served others because it was biblical to do so, believing that “the gospel of Jesus Christ prescribes the wisest rules for just conduct in every situation of life.” But he did not rely on his sacrificial service for his salvation, writing: “My only hope of salvation is in the infinite transcendent love of God manifested to the world by the death of his Son upon the cross. Nothing but his blood will wash away my sins. I rely exclusively upon it. Come Lord Jesus!”

Following his example, we can measure our belief that all humans are made in God’s image by the degree to which we advance their physical, mental, emotional, educational, and spiritual health as our own.

Dr. Rush declared, “Every man in a republic is public property.”

Do you agree?