My country tis of thee – who is the “thee” referred to in this song?  Read the lyrics and you’ll see that it is God.  Somehow, God has gotten placed in the background somewhere and we’ve forgotten to give Him the honor due Him.

Samuel Francis Smith wrote the lyrics to “My Country ‘Tis of Thee” in 1831, only 55 years after the Declaration of Independence had been signed.  Marian Anderson performed the song at the Lincoln Memorial in 1939.  Martin Luther King, Jr. recited the first verse of the song toward the end of his famous, “I Have A Dream” speech at the same location, on August 28, 1963. Crosby, Stills & Nash performed the song on Jay Leno’s Tonight Show, following the September 11, 2001 attacks.

The song has raised a patriotic fervor whenever sung.  Maybe we should start singing it at the beginning of every day.  The words continue to instill hope when we realize that God is really the founder of our nation.  His miraculous intervention with the events leading up to our independence were apparent, as a ragtag army of everyday men went up against the most powerful nation in the world.

That small group grew into a great nation itself, and though it has problems of its own, it remains the best country, where freedom continues to ring.

1

My country, ’tis of thee,

Sweet land of liberty,

Of thee I sing;

Land where my fathers died,

Land of the pilgrims’ pride,

From ev’ry mountainside

Let freedom ring!

2

My native country, thee,

Land of the noble free,

Thy name I love;

I love thy rocks and rills,

Thy woods and templed hills;

My heart with rapture thrills,

Like that above.

3

Let music swell the breeze,

And ring from all the trees

Sweet freedom’s song;

Let mortal tongues awake;

Let all that breathe partake;

Let rocks their silence break,

The sound prolong.

4

Our fathers’ God to Thee,

Author of liberty,

To Thee we sing.

Long may our land be bright,

With freedom’s holy light,

Protect us by Thy might,

Great God our King.

So as we don our red, white and blue today, let’s never forget the One who purchased our freedom from sin – Jesus, Christ.  Because of our God, our country has remained strong.  As soon as we return to His ways, we will once again be blessed as a nation.

HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY!