Psalm 56:11 “In God have I put my trust: I will not be afraid what man can do unto me.”
Psalm 115:9-11 “O Israel, trust thou in the LORD: he is their help and their shield. O house of Aaron, trust in the LORD: he is their help and their shield. Ye that fear the LORD, trust in the LORD: he is their help and their shield.”
Psalm 25:1-2 “Unto thee, O LORD, do I lift up my soul. O my God, I trust in thee: let me not be ashamed, let not mine enemies triumph over me.”
In 1907, President Theodore Roosevelt prompted a bit of controversy when he ordered new coinage to no longer contain the national motto – In God We Trust. It had been since 1865 that federal law required emblazoning that motto on every piece of our currency, signed by President Abraham Lincoln as his last approved bill before his assassination.
Yet, it wasn’t because of a desire to erase history, omit God, or purge the name of the Lord from American culture that Roosevelt did so. In many ways, it was just the opposite. President Roosevelt explained:
“My own feeling in the matter is due to my very firm conviction that to put such a motto on coins, or to use it in any kindred manner, not only does no good, but does positive harm, and is in effect irreverence, which comes dangerously close to sacrilege. … Any use which tends to cheapen it, and, above all, any use which tends to secure its being treated in a spirit of levity, is from every standpoint profoundly to be regretted. … it seems to me eminently unwise to cheapen such a motto by use on coins … In all my life I have never heard any human being speak reverently of this motto on the coins or show any signs of its having appealed to any high emotion in him, but I have literally, hundreds of times, heard it used as an occasion of and incitement to … sneering”
President Roosevelt wanted the name of the Lord and reference to our motto to be solemn, serious, and sacred. He didn’t want such a slogan to become sacrilege.
There are many elements of our Christian lives that believers sometimes take for granted. We may become a bit too flippant in our references to the Lord, in our demonstrations of our faith, and in our expressions of our testimonies. In doing so, we may be falling into the trap that concerned Roosevelt by allowing our motto to became meaningless and our slogan to become a sneer. May it never be so.
PLEASE PRAY FOR AMERICAN CHRISTIANS TO MAINTAIN A SPIRIT OF APPROPRIATE REVERENCE IN THE DAILY EXPRESSIONS OF OUR FAITHFULNESS. May we truly demonstrate, through our every word and action, that we genuinely and fully mean it when we say In God We Trust. May we never cheapen it.
