Would you mind explaining that so people have an understanding of what you mean when I say God's providence, if that correlates?

Yes, I believe that it was God's intention to raise up a nation that that was devoted to him and a government that was based on his principles.

Even though we had Christianity in the West, we didn't have that.

You know, we still had kingdoms, we had monarchs.

And I believe that it was God's intention to do that.

Why America? Because the people were obedient.

Their hearts were turned to God and they, you know, he sort of pushed them out of England, right? Because the church of England was not allowing them to worship as they desired.

I apologize for interrupting yet again.

Oh, if God's America's founder, then why did we have slavery? Why did we have, you know, different kinds of oppression in American history, Native Americans, et cetera? How do you answer that question in the book?

Well, God is the founder.

He works through people.

And there's only ever been one perfect person, and that's Jesus.

We both know that.

So it's amazing to me that God works through the push and pull of human emotion and human events and circumstances and sort of the muddiness of life, the battle between good and evil.

And yet there is God in the middle of it.

What moments from the founding where you saw this idea of divine providence and how they talked about it and what it meant to them?

And, you know, maybe Cynthia, why don't you, you know, just kind of describe our model and our way of approaching personal values.

And I think actually you brought up, you know, this is uncomfortable work.

You know, this is not, this is not, you are going to be uncomfortable because it's ask, this is work that asks you to articulate your own feelings.

self in the world.

And there's so many kind of quick ways of assessments and I'm a this and you're a that.

It's like little quick...

The co-creation of the shared understanding of something like what does respect look like? This always comes up.

Is that something you would echo or see in your own work?

How do we learn to recognize his voice, particularly if that's new for us and we don't think we've ever experienced it?

Well, it's interesting.

When we know people and we talk to them, for example, on the phone as we're talking, we get to know their voice.

We get to know them through their voice.

And It's the same with God.

And the first way that God speaks to us, the first place we go to hear from him is his word.

And the book is replete with the word of God.

How do we pray for corporate repentance and for others when it comes to the subject of liberty?

Considering that we're living in such a crazy, chaotic time, what lessons can we take from the revolution and how prayer was handled and maybe apply to what we're doing now, how we're living now in this country?

Well, if we look at the formation of the nation itself, not even the history prior to that, where the pilgrims and the Puritans prayed, they were in relationship with God, they took him seriously, they feared the Lord.

But even at the time of our revolution, we have the First Continental Congress starting in prayer, knowing that they had to have divine providence on their side.

We have prayer all throughout the war.

And we have miraculous events happening throughout the war as God's people prayed.

And then at the Constitutional Congress, or rather the Constitutional Convention, again, we have this call by Benjamin Franklin to open in prayer, to seek God on behalf of what they were building as a nation.

So prayer matters.

You know, when you look at this book, Celebrating God, our founder at America's 250th birthday, what is your hope for the impact?

What would you say that reveals about where this country is right now?

The National Day of Prayer, its 75th anniversary, was just a couple of days ago, as you know.

And I think that we are seeing a resurgence in prayer in America.

I've looked at another ministry that is really prominent is Intercessors for America.

And they have over a million hits on their website every week.

And we see yesterday was the most amazing day on the Mall in Washington, Rededicate 250.

And tens of thousands of people streamed into the nation's capital for that.

What do you think a national renewal of faith would look like today? We've talked about what it has looked like in the past, but what do we need to do to make sure that faith is at the forefront of our American culture?

What would you say is most important for people to emphasize during the 250th?

Well, I think it's the reasons that I wrote the book.

And the book started with prayer.

The prayer is both history of the hand of God and the founding of our nation and prayer for the nation in every chapter.

So the book really arose out of prayer the Lord laid it on my heart.

to pray for the nation out of the history of the nation.

And that was six years ago.

I mean, you really kind of show the thread of God's hand in all of those different major moments in our history.

What made you decide to write it? I'm sure that the timing makes sense, but what made you feel like this was something that needed to be kind of reminded to our culture at large?

I love to share that story.

I, four or five years ago, worked with my pastor on leading congregational prayer meetings for our church outside of Pittsburgh.

And I was inspired to pray for the nation out of the history of the nation for those.

So I wrote a series of prayers.

starting with the pilgrims, ending up through the Emancipation Proclamation, American prosperity, how we look forward.

And when I got to about the fourth or fifth prayer, I realized that God himself was our founder.

it's been