Today is the National Day of Prayer, an annual effort instituted by President Truman whereby those of faith gather once a year to offer prayers for our country.

It is a day to petition our Creator. A day spent looking to Him, saying “Help us, Lord” rather than looking at our TV screens and Twitter feeds shouting, “Are you kidding me?!”

I’ve been saying “Are you kidding me?!” a lot lately. Many undoubtably said it Tuesday night when Ted Cruz dropped out and Donald Trump — Donald Trump — became the presumptive GOP nominee. Or when Target decided it was a good idea to let customers pick the potty of their choice, regardless of sex. Or when a comedian calls the President of the United States “my (n-word)” at the White House Correspondents Dinner … and the White House says they’re fine with it. Or when … or when …

“Are you kidding me?!” is more the national slogan these days than “In God We Trust.”

Not surprisingly, The National Day of Prayer itself gave rise to a very loud “Are you kidding me?!” Last week, the zealous anti-faith group Military Religious Freedom Foundation launched an effort to stop a voluntary National Day of Prayer breakfast at the Marine Corp University in Quantico, Va.

MRFF founder Mikey Weinstein sent to University President Brig. Gen. Helen G. Pratt what the American Center for Law and Justice describes as a “a snarky, condescending, and disrespectful message filled with distortions about the U.S. Constitution and the religious freedom of people of all faiths who sacrificially serve in our Armed Forces and demanding that the event be canceled.”  Claiming to represent 21 students, faculty and staff that object to the event, Weinstein told Pratt, “Your MCU subordinates are quite justifiably fearful of reprisal and retribution from you if they voice their objections.”

He also included an email from a service member, who declared:

“I was raised Protestant and have no issue with prayer but when the Commanding General sends out an invitation to a religious event I feel compelled to attend and if I’m not there my absence will be noted and potentially held against me,

“This is a clear violation of the Constitution and must be stopped. The panel discussion isn’t on ethics but that using religion will make them better Marines. I am now fearful that if I don’t agree with their religious views that I’ll be judged negatively on my leadership.”

The Marine Corp University rejected the allegation. Maj. Tony Semelroth assured the Marine Corp Times the breakfast is voluntary, adding, “No attendance rosters are kept and participation, or lack of participation, has no influence on an individual’s performance evaluation or potential for promotion.” The ACLJ quickly smacked down any notion the breakfast was unconstitutional. Breakfast on. Or to paraphrase ship chaplain Lt. Howell M. Forgy during Pearl Harbor, “Praise the Lord, and pass the biscuits!”

My “Are You Kidding Me?!” came not from the notion some anti-religion group would try to wreck a prayer event. It’s not even from wondering how folks so easily made “fearful” are U.S. Marines.

It’s from MRRF and others trying to push God out of a military that owes its existence to a man who insisted God was our military’s commander: General George Washington.

Historians bicker over whether General Washington actually knelt and prayed at Valley Forge as depicted in paintings.

“The Prayer at Valley Forge” by Arnold Friberg

After all, according to AmericanRevolutionBlog.com, “Historians and biographers of Washington have pointed out the fact that Washington would choose to stand instead of kneel when praying.” But we do know he prayed, and he had his troops pray. And those troops saw the miraculous and took down the most powerful army on Earth.

More critically we remember how the Father of Our Country started this nation with a prayer.

This is George Washington’s First Inaugural Address, spoken after taking the oath as President of the United States. (An oath, to which he added, “So help me God!”) The first words of America’s first President.

Such being the impressions under which I have, in obedience to the public summons, repaired to the present station, it would be peculiarly improper to omit, in this first official act, my fervent supplications to that Almighty Being who rules over the universe, who presides in the councils of nations and whose providential aide can supply every human defect, that His benediction may consecrate to the liberties and happiness of the people of the United States a Government instituted by themselves for these essential purposes; and may enable every instrument employed in its administration to execute with success, the functions allotted to his charge.

In tendering this homage to the Great Author of every public and private good, I assure myself that it expresses your sentiments not less than my own; nor those of my fellow-citizens at large, less than either. No people can be bound to acknowledge and adore the Invisible Hand which conducts the affairs of men more than the people of the United States.

Every step by which they have advanced to the character of an independent nation seems to have been distinguished by some token of providential agency; and in the important revolution just accomplished in the system of their United government, the tranquil deliberations and voluntary consent of so many distinct communities, from which the event has resulted can not be compared with the means by which most governments have been established, without some return of pious gratitude, along with an humble anticipation of the future blessings which them past seem to presage.

These reflections, arising out of the present crisis, have forced themselves too strongly on my mind to be suppressed. You will join with me I trust in thinking, that there are none under the influence of which the proceedings of a new and free Government can more auspiciously commence.

We ought to be no less persuaded that the propitious smiles of Heaven can never be expected on a nation that disregards the eternal rules of order and right which Heaven itself has ordained; and since the preservation of sacred fire of liberty and the destiny of the republican model of government are justly considered as deeply, perhaps finally, staked of the experiment…

I shall take my present leave; but not without resorting once more to the Benign Parent of the Human Race, in humble supplication that, since He has been pleased to favor the American people with opportunities for deliberating in perfect tranquility, and dispositions for deciding with unparalleled unanimity on a form of government for the security of their union and the advancement of their happiness, so His divine blessings may be equally conspicuous in the enlarged views, the temperate consultations and the wise measures on which the success of this Government must depend.

He and the entire Congress walked en mass to St. Paul’s Chapel. (The same church that survived without even a single broken window when the Twin Towers fell on 9/11.)  Ask George Washington what he did on his first day in office. He won’t talk about executive orders, or contacting foreign leaders, or building a wall, or securing more funding for Planned Parenthood. He’d say he went to pray for the nation.

227 years later, almost to the day, that nation is hurting. It is, as Dennis Prager lays out in his new column, a “Dark Time in America.” Things are dire, Prager says; as dire as any point in our history. It was also a dark and dire the Christmas night General Washington set out across the Delaware in a high-risk bid to reverse the course of the American Revolution.

If we hope to reverse our course, wouldn’t we be wise to climb on the boat with Washington? To row, not with our own strength, but that of our “Benign Parent” whose “providential aide can supply every human defect”?

Join us, join your church family, for the 2016 National Day of Prayer.