Abraham Lincoln

I received a review copy of this book; all opinions expressed are mine.

When I first heard about the new book Praying for America by Dr. Robert Jeffress, I thought the timing of its publication couldn’t have been better. With all that we have going on in our country, our nation so desperately needs prayer!

In the introduction of Praying for America (FaithWords, hardcover) Dr. Jeffress, Senior Pastor of First Baptist Church in Dallas, Texas, reminds us that Jesus taught, “…the purpose of prayer is not to get our will done in heaven but to get God’s will done on earth.” He explains that he wrote this book “…to encourage you to ask God to bless America and to accomplish His perfect will in our nation.” Each of the 40 chapters have a prayer topic and include an inspiring story about how the power of faith and prayer made an important difference in the history of our county, along with a special prayer and Scripture relevant to each topic.

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Happy Thanksgiving to all of you! I thought I’d share a little about some of the history of the holiday!

On October 3, 1863, President Lincoln’s Proclamation of Thanksgiving set the precedent for our country’s national day of Thanksgiving. It proclaims the last Thursday of November “as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise.” Prior to that, different states had been celebrating Thanksgiving on different days.

Lincoln, born in Kentucky, grew up in a poor family and was mostly self-educated, having only attended school for a year. He became a country lawyer before getting involved in politics in the 1830’s. In 1860, he was elected the 16th President of the United States, entering office in 1861. Our country was still in the midst of the Civil War when the first Thanksgiving Day as a national holiday was celebrated.

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