America is a Christian nation. Our very founding testifies to this eternal truth. From the Pilgrims crossing the Atlantic in search of religious liberty to the Continental Congress opening its sessions in fervent prayer, our forebears understood that true liberty flows from dependence upon Almighty God. To be genuinely America First, we must honor our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ as the cornerstone of our national identity. In these treacherous political and cultural landscapes—where secularism, moral decay, and anti-Christian beliefs have become normalized—we dare not forget that our blessings as the greatest nation on earth come directly from the hand of Providence.
As we stand on the threshold of America’s 250th anniversary in 2026, a profound opportunity presents itself: the chance to rededicate our nation as One Nation Under God. President Trump has proclaimed a “Year of Celebration and Rededication” and called for the National Jubilee of Prayer, Praise, and Thanksgiving on May 17, 2026, on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. This gathering, part of the broader Freedom 250 and America Prays initiatives, invites believers from every state to come together at sunrise for worship, testimonies, music, and a powerful national moment of prayer—echoing the very prayers that sustained our founders 250 years ago.
A Nation Birthed in Prayer
The story of America does not begin with political theory alone but with humble dependence on God. In 1776, as the Second Continental Congress prepared to declare independence, they issued calls for days of fasting, humiliation, and prayer. The very first prayer in Congress, offered by Rev. Jacob Duché on September 7, 1774, cried out: “O Lord our Heavenly Father… look down in mercy… on these our American States… Be Thou present, O God of wisdom, and direct the councils of this honorable assembly.”
Founders like George Washington, John Adams, Samuel Adams, and Elias Boudinot repeatedly acknowledged the hand of Divine Providence. Washington prayed that God would “dispose us all to do justice, to love mercy, and to demean ourselves with… charity, humility, and pacific temper… which were the characteristics of the Divine Author of our blessed religion.” Roger Sherman affirmed his belief in the triune God and the authority of Scripture. These were not vague spiritual sentiments—they were explicit Christian convictions that shaped the moral foundation of our republic.
The Declaration of Independence itself appeals to the “Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God” and declares that we are “endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable Rights.” Our liberty was never secular; it was rooted in the biblical understanding that all men are made in the image of God.
The Treacherous Drift
Yet today, as we approach this historic milestone, the cultural and political landscapes grow increasingly treacherous. Recent Gallup data reveals that only 47% of Americans say religion is “very important” in their lives—a sharp decline from decades past—with the share of religious “nones” reaching a record 24%. Church attendance continues to lag, and anti-Christian rhetoric has been normalized in media, education, academia, and even segments of government. What was once a nation that publicly honored God now faces pressure to privatize faith or treat biblical truth as hate speech.
This drift is no accident. When a people forget their dependence on the Lord, moral confusion follows—weakening families, borders, justice, and national resolve. Proverbs 14:34 warns us plainly: “Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people.” We cannot successfully navigate these storms without placing Jesus Christ at the top of mind in all things—personal, familial, cultural, and political.
America’s blessings have never been guaranteed. They are a stewardship from God, given because earlier generations sought His face. If we allow normalized godlessness to continue, we risk squandering the very exceptionalism that has made us a beacon to the world.
A Moment for Rededication
The Rededicate 250 event on May 17, 2026, is more than a commemoration—it is a solemn call to repentance and renewal. It echoes the Continental Congress’s own day of prayer exactly 250 years earlier and invites us to give thanks for 250 years of God’s providence while praying for His continued blessing and protection over the next 250 years.
This is the heart of true America First: not mere patriotism detached from its Source, but a humble return to the God who has blessed us so abundantly. As 2 Chronicles 7:14 reminds God’s people, “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.”
While this promise was spoken to ancient Israel, its principle applies to any nation that claims the name of the Lord: humility, prayer, repentance, and obedience open the door for divine healing and restoration. In treacherous times, this remains our surest path.
Our Call to Action
As believers, we must not treat this 250th anniversary as mere fireworks and festivals. It is a divine appointment:
- Pray without ceasing — Participate in the America Prays initiative. Dedicate time weekly with family, church, and community to intercede for our nation.
- Teach the next generation — Ensure our children know the true Christian heritage of America—not the sanitized, secular version taught in many schools.
- Live righteously — Reject the normalization of anti-Christian beliefs in our homes, churches, and public squares. Let our lives demonstrate that righteousness still exalts a nation.
- Engage boldly — Support and attend events like the National Jubilee of Prayer. Vote, speak, and act with faith as our foundation, always honoring God above party or personality.
- Rededicate personally and nationally — On May 17 and throughout 2026, join in giving thanks and solemnly reaffirming America as One Nation Under God.
America has been entrusted with much because much has been given. Let us not allow treacherous cultural forces to cause us to slip from that high calling. Instead, may this 250th anniversary mark a turning point—a genuine spiritual awakening where we once again acknowledge our Lord and Savior at the center of our national life.
Two hundred fifty years ago, our founders staked everything on the belief that God governs in the affairs of men. Today, the same God who guided them calls us to renewed faithfulness. May we rise to the occasion.
Righteousness still exalts a nation. May America shine again as a city on a hill—for the glory of God and the preservation of the greatest nation He has ever blessed.
Two Storms, One Harvest
Every food crisis in living memory has been a one-shock event. The 2008 price spike was a commodity bubble. The 2020 shortages were a logistics failure. The 2022 grain scare was a war on one exporter’s ports. Each time, the system bent, adjusted, and recovered, and each time the experts assured us afterward that global markets are simply too big and too diversified to fail.
What nobody in Washington seems eager to discuss is that 2026 is shaping up to be something the modern food system has never actually faced. Two independent shocks, one climatic and one geopolitical, are converging on the same harvest cycle at the same time. Not sequentially. Simultaneously.
Start with the weather. The Pacific Ocean is currently building toward what forecasters now openly call a record event. NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center puts the odds of at least a strong El Niño near 88 percent, with roughly two in three odds it reaches “very strong” status, the tier reserved for perhaps three or four events in the entire satellite era. Every major global model now projects a median peak in Super El Niño territory, and most of them project it exceeding the 2015-16 event, which until now held the modern record. Sea surface anomalies were already brushing the super threshold in mid-July, months before these events normally peak. The atmosphere has already shifted into El Niño mode, and the event is forecast to crest in late fall and early winter.
This is not about “climate change.” It’s about the standard cycles of weather, and the cycle we’re currently in is one that has likely devastated societies in the past. We’re better prepared as a society today, but not all Americans are equally prepared.
Serious households have started doing the quiet math on their own. Grocery bills tell part of the story, and the forecast maps tell the rest, which is why long-term food storage has moved from fringe hobby to mainstream line item in the family budget, with established suppliers like Heaven’s Harvest seeing demand from people who five years ago would have rolled their eyes at the idea. That instinct is not paranoia. It is pattern recognition, and the pattern is worth walking through carefully.
Editor’s Note: Heaven’s Harvest IS a sponsor, but the warnings of this article are real and would be written even if we didn’t have a survival food sponsor. With that said, those who take advantage of what they offer can use promo code “Patriot” for 15% off.
The Fertilizer Clock Is Already Running
While the Pacific warms, the second shock has been unfolding in the Strait of Hormuz. The conflict with Iran turned the world’s most important energy chokepoint into a contested waterway, and the consequences reach far beyond the gas pump. Roughly a third of global fertilizer trade moves through Hormuz, and the disruption sent urea prices up 86 percent year over year by March, with a 53 percent jump in a single month.
The World Bank projects energy prices rising about 24 percent in 2026 and fertilizer about 31 percent. By its own accounting, fertilizer prices ran 35 percent higher in the first five months of this year than the same period last year.
Here is the mechanism the nightly news will not explain. Fertilizer is not a grocery item. It is a time-delayed input. The nitrogen a farmer in Iowa or Punjab could not afford to apply this spring does not show up as a problem this spring. It shows up as a thinner harvest six to twelve months later.
The World Bank’s own food security brief concedes that the effects of reduced applications earlier this season “are likely to become visible only later in harvest outcomes.” Translate that from institutional language into plain English and it means this. The damage is already done, it is already in the ground, and we are simply waiting for it to arrive on the shelf.
Now check the calendar. Six to twelve months from the spring planting season lands us squarely in late 2026 and early 2027. Which is precisely when the strongest El Niño in the instrumental record is forecast to peak, bringing its signature droughts to Southeast Asia, Australia, southern Africa, northern Brazil, and South Asia, the very regions that grow the world’s rice, sugar, and oilseeds.
The World Bank warns openly that a strong El Niño “could disrupt multiple crop belts simultaneously” on top of the conflict-driven input costs. Their baseline projection assumes the Middle East disruptions ease by autumn. What in the last two years of Middle East history suggests that assumption is safe?
The System Has No Slack Left
The comfortable answer is that global markets always adjust. But adjustment requires slack, and the slack is gone. Global cereal production is expected to decline from last year’s records even before El Niño does its work. The UN World Food Programme, hardly a den of right-wing preppers, is calling this the most significant disruption to its supply chains since Covid and the invasion of Ukraine, and its supply chain director put the stakes bluntly.
Today’s supply chain challenges are tomorrow’s hunger crisis.
There is also a political dimension that markets cannot price. When food gets scarce, governments do not behave like economists. They behave like politicians. Export bans, hoarding mandates, and panic buying at the national level turned the modest rice shortfall of 2008 into a global crisis, and analysts are already warning that import-dependent nations are the first dominoes.
The 2015-16 Super El Niño, a far weaker event than what is now forecast, threw tens of millions into food stress across Africa and Asia. This one is projected to be stronger, and it arrives with fertilizer already rationed by price and shipping lanes already contested by missiles.
What Joseph Knew
Scripture does not treat preparation for lean years as faithlessness. It treats it as wisdom delivered in advance to those willing to act on it.
Behold, there come seven years of great plenty throughout all the land of Egypt: And there shall arise after them seven years of famine; and all the plenty shall be forgotten in the land of Egypt.
Joseph did not respond to that warning with a hashtag or a committee. He stored grain during the years of abundance, and when the famine came, Egypt stood while its neighbors begged. The lesson is not that famine is certain. It is that the time to prepare is precisely when preparation still looks optional.
Nobody who filled a pantry in a year of plenty has ever regretted it, and nobody standing in an empty aisle has ever been glad he waited for certainty.
None of this calls for panic, and panic is the enemy of sound judgment anyway. It calls for the same unglamorous prudence our grandparents considered ordinary. Keep some cash margin, know your local growers, and put real food in deep storage while it is cheap and available, because the entire arc of this story is that cheap and available is a closing window.
Families looking for a straightforward place to start can visit Heaven’s Harvest and use promo code Patriot for 15 percent off long-term storable food. The forecasts may yet soften, the strait may yet reopen, and we should pray they do. But hope is a fine thing to hold and a foolish thing to eat.
