The U.S.A. has often received divine favor. Let’s pray it doesn’t end.

This coming week, as you enumerate the blessings for which you’re thankful, offer up thanksgiving—and an appeal—for the good old U.S.A.

She’s been beaten up by internal divisions in recent years. I sometimes wonder how long our nation can remain the last best hope of Earth, as Lincoln described it.

That the United States has not only survived but thrived as long as it has is, in my humble estimation, a testimony to God’s power and grace.

A few weeks ago, browsing the history section of a bookstore with a pastor-appreciation gift card burning my wallet, I happened across Michael Medved’s 2016 book, “The American Miracle: Divine Providence in the Rise of the Republic.”

I remembered Medved only as the guy who used to do movie reviews on TV. Intrigued by his book’s title, I bought it.

Subsequently, I discovered Medved is also a political activist and commentator. An Orthodox Jew, he’s a supporter of the Religious Right. He used to fill in as a guest host for the late Rush Limbaugh.

To put it charitably, I couldn’t imagine Medved and I would be on the same political or religious page about much. After I looked him up online, I grew afraid “The American Miracle” might spontaneously burst into flames and sear the flesh from my hands.

But, alas, it did no such thing. Turns out, it’s no polemic, and it’s exceedingly well written.

Medved’s central argument—that the United States has been visited again and again by divine favor—is one with which I agree.

To say God historically has blessed the United States isn’t to say he hasn’t also blessed other countries, both today and across the ages. In a sense, every country is his.

Neither is it to claim that ours is a uniquely “Christian” nation in the way some zealots wield that term. It’s also not to ignore our evils, such as the destruction of Native Americans or the enslavement and subsequent mistreatment of black people.

Blessed isn’t a synonym for perfect. And nothing guarantees that our past favor will be permanent. As history also shows, even the mightiest of nations eventually implode.

I’m not a historian, but I’ve been an avid amateur student of American history for close to 60 years. It’s long struck me that, although fortuitous and unpredictable coincidences probably have occurred in every country, the United States has been the recipient of an uncanny number of such events.

As one who believes God is involved in all human affairs, I’ve often thought the Almighty might have pulled cosmic strings on our behalf.

For instance, I’m currently listening to the audio version of Ron Chernow’s “Grant,” a biography of Ulysses S. Grant. It’s the latest of several books I’ve read about the Civil War general and U.S. president.

Grant’s story is almost unbelievable. No matter how much I read about him, I can’t fathom how this man became the instrument of national salvation, the most brilliant battlefield commander in American history.

Before the Civil War, he’d failed at everything. He’d been forced from the army for alcoholism. He’d gone bust as a farmer. He’d been reduced to peddling firewood on street corners. When the war started, he was clerking in his dismissive father’s leather goods store in Illinois, where he ranked beneath his two younger brothers. Nearly everybody except his wife, Julia, considered him an embarrassing failure.

He rejoined the army. From obscurity and ridicule, he rose to command all Union forces. He defeated the feared Robert E. Lee. He became president, twice. Ultimately, his contemporaries regarded him as one of three greatest Americans ever, the equal of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. (For sheer unlikeliness, Lincoln’s own story rivaled Grant’s.)

How did that happen?

Or consider the American Revolution. In 1776, when the combined population of all 13 colonies was 2.5 million people (today, 35 individual states have more people than that), our nation produced a who’s who of world-class geniuses to guide it through its birth pangs and infancy: Washington, Franklin, Hamilton, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe.

What are the odds?

Medved recounts how awed early Americans when Adams and Jefferson, two of the first three presidents, died on the same day—July 4, 1826, the Grand Jubilee celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. Monroe also died on July 4, five years after Adams and Jefferson. (To date, these are the only presidents to have died on the same day or on July 4.)

The founders, as well as their successors, perceived a supernatural hand in such happenings, Medved says. These weren’t “ignorant simpletons with delusions of grandeur.” They were brilliant men and woman reacting to what they’d witnessed.

This Thanksgiving, we’d do well to thank God for his historic intercessions on our behalf. We’d also do well to beg God’s forbearance and grace in the days ahead.

Paul Prather is pastor of Bethesda Church near Mount Sterling. You can email him at pratpd@yahoo.com.