A bit of background on the importance of the first Thursday in May in America. Over 50,000 NDP events are being held today across the nation. If you cannot participate in one of these, do be praying wherever you are that God would have mercy on us and that we, HIS people, would humble ourselves, turn from “our” wicked ways, that God might be pleased to hear our prayer and heal our land.

The “National Day of Prayer” is an annual day of observance held on the first Thursday of May, designated by the United States Congress, when people are asked “to turn to God in prayer and meditation”. Each year since its inception, the president has signed a proclamation, encouraging all Americans to pray on this day.

There were several national days of prayer, however, before the day was made an official annual day of observance in 1952. Prior to the nation’s founding, the Second Continental Congress issued a proclamation recommending “a day of publick humiliation, fasting, and prayer” be observed by the “English Colonies” on Thursday, July 20, 1775, “and to bless our rightful sovereign, King George the Third. A proclamation to this end was sent to every town in the colonies. In his role as Commander-in-Chief of the Continental Army, George Washington acknowledged a second day of “fasting, humiliation and prayer” proclaimed by the Continental Congress to be held on Thursday, May 6, 1779. To enable his soldiers to observe the day, Washington ordered a one-day cessation of recreation and “unnecessary labor.” In March 1780, Congress announced a day of “fasting, humiliation and prayer” to be held on Wednesday, April 26, 1780.

A Senate report states that “When the delegates to the Constitutional Convention encountered difficulties in the writing and formation of a Constitution for this Nation, prayer was suggested and became an established practice at succeeding sessions,” according to the report by the Committee on the Judiciary. On April 17, 1952, President Harry Truman signed a bill proclaiming a National Day of Prayer must be declared by each following president at an appropriate date of his choice. In 1982 a conservative evangelical Christian organization called the “National Prayer Committee” was formed to coordinate and implement a fixed annual day of prayer for the purpose of organizing evangelical Christian prayer events with local, state, and federal government entities. In his 1983 declaration, Ronald Reagan said, “From General Washington’s struggle at Valley Forge to the present, this Nation has fervently sought and received divine guidance as it pursued the course of history. This occasion provides our Nation with an opportunity to further recognize the source of our blessings, and to seek His help for the challenges we face today and in the future.” In 1988, the law was amended so that the National Day of Prayer would be held on the first Thursday of May.