Dear friend,
In three days, America turns 250 years old.
I have been thinking about that number all week. Two hundred and fifty years. I am an old man, and even I cannot fully hold that in my mind. The things this country has been through. The wars. The grief. The moments when everything looked like it was about to fall apart and somehow did not.
I got on my knees about it last night. And I want to tell you what I found when I did.
I want to start with something honest.
This is not the America I grew up watching from a distance. I have spent fifty years inside the Church, studying Scripture, praying for nations the way the prophets prayed for nations. With love and with grief. Because you cannot truly love something without also grieving what it has not yet become.
And when I look at America right now I feel both of those things at the same time.
The grief is real. I will not pretend it is not.
More than half the country no longer goes to church. Children are being taught things in school that their grandparents would not recognize. The family — the thing God designed first and loves most — is under more pressure than at any point in two hundred and fifty years. Men and women who built this country with their hands and their faith feel like strangers in the place they were born.
I feel that grief. I carry it with me. I know many of you do too.
But here is what I also found on my knees last night.
God is not surprised by any of it.
In Jeremiah chapter 29, God spoke to His people while they were in exile. They had lost everything. Their city was gone. Their life was gone. And God's word to them was not — I have left you. His word was this:
For I know the plans I have for you. Plans to give you a future and a hope.
He said that to people who had lost everything. People who looked at the ruins of what they had built and wondered if any of it had meant anything at all.
I believe He is saying the same thing to America right now.
Here is what I think God sees when He looks at this country on her 250th birthday.
He does not see the headlines. He does not see the polls or the protests or the politicians fighting in rooms most of us will never enter. He sees what He has always seen — the people inside the country. The ordinary, faithful people who have not given up.
He sees the grandmother in Georgia who gets on her knees every morning and prays for this country before she makes her coffee. He sees the farmer in Iowa who has worked the same land his grandfather worked and still thanks God for it. He sees the veteran who came home broken and rebuilt himself around his faith because there was nothing else left to rebuild around. He sees the mother raising her children to know the Lord in a world that is doing everything it can to make that harder.
Those people are still here. There are more of them than the news will ever tell you.
And I believe, with everything in me, that God looks at those people and does not see a country that is finished. He sees a country that is being tested. Those are not the same thing.
In Second Chronicles chapter 7, verse 14, God made a promise I have come back to more times than I can count.
If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land.
He did not say if the politicians get it right. He did not say if the courts rule correctly. He did not say if the media tells the truth.
He said if my people will pray.
That is you. You are His people. And the future of this country has always rested less on the people in power and more on the people on their knees.
That is a big responsibility. It is also a big reason for hope.
I want to tell you one more thing before I close.
I have been watching this country for a long time. And I have come to believe that what is happening right now — the attacks, the opposition, the feeling that everything is being thrown at once at the things and the people you love — is not the end of the story.
It is a pattern. The same pattern I have seen in Scripture over and over again. The moment right before things turn always looks like the darkest point. And the men God chooses for hard moments are always attacked, always opposed, always declared finished before they are actually finished.
That is exactly why I wrote They Tried To Stop Him: What The Bible Says About Donald Trump. Not because I wanted to write a political book. But because I believe the pattern Scripture describes — the chosen man, the attacks from every direction, the survival that cannot be explained by anything other than God's hand — is exactly what this country is living through right now, at this moment in her 250 year history.
If you want to understand what I believe God is doing in America right now, that guide is the clearest thing I have written. You can find it by clicking on the image below:
Alternatively, you may click the following link: https://fatherthomasletters.com/products/they-tried-to-stop-him-what-the-bible-says-about-donald-trump
So on the eve of America's 250th birthday, here is what I want to leave with you.
Do not despair. Not because everything is fine — it is not. But because despair means believing God has run out of options. And He has not. Not once in the entire history of this world. And He is not about to start now.
Pray for this country this week. The way the grandmother in Georgia prays before her coffee. The way Jeremiah prayed for a city in ruins and still believed what God had promised.
America is not finished. She is being tested. And the people of God who are still standing, still praying, still refusing to give up — you are not just the ones praying. You are part of the answer.
God bless you, friend. And God bless America. Still. After all of it. Still.
With you in prayer,
Father Thomas
This week I want you to do three things:
One. On July 4th, before anything else — before the food, before the fireworks — spend five minutes praying for this country. Name what you are worried about. Name what you are grateful for. Let God hear both.
Two. Read Second Chronicles chapter 7, verse 14 this week. Read it slowly. Notice what God is asking for — not perfection, not a political win. Just humility and prayer. Every one of us can offer that right now.
Three. If you want the full Biblical picture of what I believe God is doing in America right now — read They Tried To Stop Him: https://fatherthomasletters.com/products/they-tried-to-stop-him-what-the-bible-says-about-donald-trump.
It will give you something steadier than hope. It will give you understanding.