Not Who We Are, But Whose We Are

America's greatness was never about who we are it was always about whose we are. This week Sher takes us on a journey through American history to remind us that from the Pilgrims to Washington to Lincoln, this country was founded on a covenant with God, and that covenant still belongs to us. With the First Presidency calling all members to a unified fast on July 5th, Cydni and Sher want to help you prepare, not just show up hungry, but show up with purpose. Also, Cydni followed the wrong outline entirely and learned a lot. This week's episode is "Not Who We Are But Whose We Are"and we are so glad you are here!

This Week's Challenge
As you prepare for the July 5th fast, read the Gettysburg Address and reflect on what it means to be part of a covenant nation and whose you truly are.

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Show Notes

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Transcript

Episode 168 - Not Who We Are, But Whose We Are

Cydni: [00:00:00] We often joke about how unprepared I am and how we're always on different pages. But today ... we are the most on different pages, as I'm ready to discuss our first topic, and Sher is ready to tell me that's not, actually our first topic. And I have followed the entirely wrong outline.

Sher: I am so sorry. We were completely 

on different pages. 

Cydni: I have already learned so much about Mercy Otis Warren. Don't you worry, guys. You get to hear about her next. But today you get to listen to Sher. 

Oh. 

 Welcome to the Cydni and Sher, mostly Sher, podcast. 

Sher: Oh, good grief. Usually we do a summer series in July, but since it's our 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration for the United States of America, we are gonna do some history things for all of June and July. But there's more. Cydni, go ahead and say why we decided to start in

Cydni: we decided [00:01:00] to start in June because we have been asked by the First Presidency of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to prepare for a special fast July 5th, which is pretty awesome. Also interesting that they gave us so many months of a heads-up.

Why do you think, Sher? Why did they tell us in, I believe February, to prepare for a fast in July? 

Sher: Well, obviously I don't know, but the one that just comes to my heart is because there are so many parts and pieces of American history that people haven't either learned or they have forgotten, that I think that it's gonna honestly take us time to get back to remember the whole point of America and why it was set up, and that this country is founded on covenants with God.

Cydni: I really love that, and I also think when I fast with purpose and thought, I am so much better at doing it and accomplishing it.

I think of times where I remembered it was Fast Sunday [00:02:00] and tried to fast without much thought ahead, and I honestly fail that almost every time. And I notice my son, too, he was fasting, and I asked him what he was fasting for, and he's like, "Well, it's Fast Sunday." And he lasted about two hours, and then ... he and I both were eating waffles and having a diet Dr. Pepper together. So we didn't make it very long because we weren't prepared, our hearts weren't ready, and our purpose wasn't ready either. So I feel like the idea behind telling us in February to prepare now is to help us to be a lot more thoughtful and sincere, maybe have a better experience. we're hoping with these episodes that we'll help you to prepare, and to think about it now.

Just like we did with Easter, it was so helpful to do those episodes before Easter. It really prepared me for Easter. We're doing the same thing, but with fireworks. Snap, snap, snap, snap. I don't know, How do you do a fire? Yeah, that was definitely it, the snap, snap, snap ... 

snap, snap, snap. Yeah. That's the [00:03:00] fireworks. Crackle, pop. I'm not influenced by TV in the '80s. Do you know which one I'm talking about? Rice krispies, yes. 

We have a little bit of the letter, though. Because again, the intention of these episodes is to prepare all of us to intentionally and deliberately fast July 5th, . Here is a portion of the letter. " On Sunday, July 5th, 2026, all are invited to participate in a unified fast to express gratitude for religious liberty, "and to pray that it will be strengthening throughout the world." Additionally, they also ask us to participate in service projects and activities associated with the 250th anniversary observation, which I love so much that they want us to act and serve in preparation for the fast. So we're going to be giving up food and water, but also time, for a really great cause, I guess, right? 

Sher: I think so. I think it's worth it. But what do I know? I'm a [00:04:00] old history teacher. So we thought, Cydni, if you can remember correctly, that we'd start with something 

Cydni: Apparently I didn't remember any of this.

Sher: It's all- Was I here? It's all good. So we thought we'd start with something that I wish that all of America would remember, is to take time to remember that America is a covenant nation. N. Elder Tanner taught in 1976, which was our 200-year anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, he taught us now, what of America's future? How can we best show our appreciation to God for these marvelous blessings of freedom, of a place where His true and everlasting gospel was restored, of the preparation and divine guidance in every event leading to the most significant event?

We must remember what the Lord told the Jaredites when they were first brought to this land. "Behold, this is a choice land, and whatsoever nation shall possess it shall be free from bondage, and from captivity, and from [00:05:00] all other nations under heaven, if," they will but serve the God of the land, who is Jesus Christ, who has been manifested by the things which we have written."

what we can learn from all of this, Cydni, is that we are a covenant nation, and people that did not even have the full gospel knowledge understood this before we were even a country, and acknowledged and continued this covenant that God explaining to the Jaredites in the Book of Mormon.

I just think it is so amazing that these people had the Spirit so strongly that without having the Book of Mormon they understood what this land was all about already. It's a miracle. It truly is a blessing and a miracle. Let's start with the first group of people.

The first group of people that made the first covenants in this land were the pilgrims, and- This is when they signed the Mayflower Compact in the year 1620. The document starts with this: "In the name of God, Amen." So before they even got off the [00:06:00] boat, before they actually touched the soil, the pilgrims stopped and made a covenant with God on the boat and with each other.

The Mayflower Compact declared that they were acting for the glory of God and the advancement of the Christian faith. This is their mission statement, or their purpose was to glorify God and to share the gospel of Christ.

So again, this was in the year 1620, and this is before the United States was even a thing. they were still part of the British Empire, and they're already recognizing that this land was under covenant. Then 10 years later, John Winthrop gave a sermon about the Puritan Massachusetts Bay Colony.

He said it was a city on a hill, and he started the sermon by saying, "Now, the only way to avoid this shipwreck and to provide for our posterity is to follow the counsel of Micah to do justly, to love mercy, to walk humbly with our God." He then says this: "For we must consider that we shall be as a city upon a [00:07:00] hill. The eyes of all people are upon us." So this is usually where people stop, and people use this quote to boast that we are better than everyone else and that we are exceptional because of who we are. And really, Cydni, they need to read the rest of the quote. So here it is. So that if we shall deal falsely with our God in this work we have undertaken and so cause Him to withdraw his presence from us, we shall be made a story and a byword through the world."

He further states that, "We shall shame the faces of many of God's worthy servants and cause their prayers to be turned into curses upon us till we be consumed out of the good land wither we are going." the only thing, I cannot express this enough, the only thing that makes this country exceptional is if we honor our covenant with God because God makes individuals and countries or nations exceptional [00:08:00] when they covenant with him. It's when we recognize whose we are, that's when we become exceptional. as members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, we learn that this land that we live on does come with a covenant.

We live here free if we choose to follow God. If we don't follow God, we will be swept off. So isn't it interesting that this is basically what John Winthrop was saying he had the Holy Spirit with him, and he understood what it meant to make a covenant with God when building a colony or a nation or working on yourself as an individual. So it's our choice to choose to follow God, or honestly, we're just done here and God will replace us with someone who wants to follow him

Cydni: I love the forward thinking and the forward vision they had because I think we take for granted where we are, and we forget how we got there, and it actually reminds me, I was listening to a cyclist talk about how he's learned the hard way [00:09:00] how to mountain bike because he would look at the wrong thing.

And he said that he learned that yes, there are going to be cliffs, and there's going to be pit holes, and there's going to be stumps in the way that are going to cause problems. But he found that if he looked at those, that he would fall, he would get injured, and there would be chaos. But he found that if he looked ahead to where he wanted to be and he focused on the end goal, that everything else would disappear and it would be, yes, those holes are still there, the bumps are still there, the tree branches are still there, and there's going to be chaos still, but it's focusing on the future and the future vision of the ride that will get him there.

When you focus on all the bumps, you'll never get there. And I think we sometimes forget just the vision that these people had, which proves again that they had the spirit with them. Because it's just not human nature to be able to see things the way that they saw it, to have that faith and that belief and that being touched by God's [00:10:00] hand to see spiritually what was possible and why it was so important.

Because they probably knew they themselves would not enjoy so many of these freedoms, and that's where we need to be grateful because they made these sacrifices to help us have them. And yet here we are not wanting to put our shoulder to the wheel, just wanna relax. 

Sher: It's true. And I'm gonna add to that. I think that because we have been given the gift of freedom that we just think that it is free, and that we don't have to do anything to keep it, that this is just how the world is. Freedom is just here. When if you look at all of history and you put it all on a timescale of the countries and nations that have been free, we would be just a little tiny, tiny, tiny dot on that map.

We are living in an exceptional time, I just hope and pray that we realize how fortunate we are and we express that gratitude to God with our 250th anniversary 

 The next person I wanna talk about that [00:11:00] made a covenant with God is George Washington. He understood the covenant also, and he renewed the covenant when he became our president. But before he was the president, in the winter at Valley Forge, our soldiers didn't have enough food, shoes, clothing, and smallpox was going through the camp. A local farmer named Isaac Potts witnessed George Washington praying in the woods. He was kneeling in the snow and praying. George Washington understood, that if we wanted to create a country, that we needed God, and in order to survive, that we needed to serve and worship Him.

Washington later wrote, "The hand of providence has been so conspicuous in all of this that he must be worse than an infidel that lacks faith, and more than wicked that has not gratitude enough to acknowledge his obligations." As we study American history, and really any history, if you look for it, it's like what you said with your bike [00:12:00] analogy. What you gaze upon, that's what you're gonna see. And when you look through history, you can see God's hand throughout it. And how He's not leaving us there alone. He's with us every step of the way if we turn to Him and covenant with Him. George Washington understood that if we were gonna be free, it was because of the miracles of God intervening on our behalf, and he saw it and he talked about it often.

And this is what I wanna remember. We have been saved by God because our founders were willing to make a covenant and be obedient to God and His commandments, and then they showed gratitude for the blessings that we have received. And I think that is a really good reminder of what we should try to be doing with this anniversary.

Cydni: When you said that he understood the reason we were free is because of the miracle of God, I believe he felt that way because he didn't want the glory for himself. Otherwise, he would have accepted a longer presidency. But he [00:13:00] knew that much power would not be good for him. Am I, am I remembering right- Yeah ... Teacher Sher? 

Sher: You are correct. Well, not only that many colonists wanted him to be our king, and he turned it down. Who turns down being a king? 

I want it. 

Right? And then they wanted him to stay longer as our president, and he said no. That is a miracle in itself, that he truly understood what his purpose was, and he understood that his job was to help God's plan here on Earth, which is to have agency, that all men and women have the right to choose for themselves.

And that's why he was willing to step down. This wasn't about him. This was about God and serving God. 

Cydni: Man, that is a serious amount of discipline to not take that power. I would take it so fast. 

Sher: Right. Even if you had good intentions, you would come up with all these good reasons like, "I'm gonna be a kind and just dictator."

Cydni: I was not thinking that. I was gonna go back to, like, taking 50% of everyone's crops. I would take 50% of everyone's network marketing income so [00:14:00] fast. I probably will not be king in this lifetime. 

Sher: Thank goodness. All right. George Washington in his first inaugural address, he warned that Heaven's blessings can never be expected for a nation that ignores, this is a quote from him, "the eternal rules of order and right." He also talked about that virtue and happiness were forever bound together.

You cannot have one without the other. And he also said that our success depends on divine favor. He then went on to make what I think was a more formal covenant with God, which we've recently talked about. In Genesis 49, this is where Jacob gives his 12 sons a blessing, and he's passing the covenant from God to Abraham to Isaac to Jacob to his 12 boys.

And Washington purposely opened the Bible to this page. When he took the oath of office, he kissed that page. And to me, I feel that Washington was renewing the covenant with God. He was [00:15:00] acknowledging that God, is our king. And in order to be free, we need to follow him. America's success is conditional. That is so important to remember. It is conditional, and it's based on our obedience to God. 

Cydni: Okay, wait. I have one more thought about George Washington not taking more power. He had to have so much trust in God's plan because he couldn't control the kind of person, the kind of man that would take over power. He wouldn't get to pick, and he had to have so much trust in God's plan to let go of that control and hope that the next men would continue instead of wanting to be king. 

Sher: I think that's a really good way to look at it because he knew he was a good and just man, and he knew he would do right, but he had to let go. And you're right, that's tough. That is a tough thing to do. But he did it. 

So the next person that renewed the covenant was Abraham Lincoln. So by 1861, the Civil War had [00:16:00] started, and it was very clear that we had gone off track, that we're no longer following our mission statement that is found in the Declaration of Independence.

For two years, two years, the North was not doing well, and they were just getting their butts kicked. And then finally, at Gettysburg in 1863, the North won a major victory. Now, it was a disaster scene, and the North had to bury all of these people. in the Gettysburg Cemetery, the Northern and the Southern soldiers are buried side by side with the utmost respect for both sides. Have you ever been there by chance, Cydni? 

No, I have not. 

It is so incredible because this is two enemies fighting each other, and they're buried next to each other in this cemetery with just absolute respect and honor. It's really beautiful to see that. That our nation was able to come back together like that, yet another miracle.

Cydni: It's like when siblings fight and then their parents make them hold hands [00:17:00] or, like, go in that big shirt together and just sit there.

Sher: It's exactly like that. Beautiful. Only they were all dead, but yeah. Yeah. Well- You kind of got the right vibe there. 

Cydni: The same idea. 

Sher: Definitely.

Cydni: If they were dead, then they didn't really have a choice. 

Sher: Yeah, they didn't have a choice. Yeah. They just got put where they got put. 

Yeah. 

True. So at the Battle of Gettysburg, there were over 51,000 people killed or wounded, and almost 10,000 were buried at the Gettysburg Cemetery.

And Lincoln was asked to speak at the dedication. Lincoln took this opportunity to dedicate, or covenant, our country again, and he used the word dedicate in multiple ways and meanings. I ch- challenge everybody to read the Gettysburg Address. It's really short, and the way he writes it is just so beautiful.

So what he does is he takes the opportunity here to explain that this nation was Conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are [00:18:00] created equal. He then dedicated the cemetery, and then he also explained that the soldiers buried in Gettysburg dedicated their very lives for liberty and then he said that the living should now dedicate themselves so that this nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, Shall not perish from the Earth. So he's reminding Americans of the covenant, that we are conceived in liberty, and we are dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. That's God's will. That's not something that men give. It's something that God gives. God is the one who gives and grants liberty or agency. God gave us the gift of liberty, he gave us the gift of life, and he gave us the gift of pursuing happiness

Cydni: In Lincoln's second inaugural address, he explained it further. He said that both sides [00:19:00] prayed to the same God, and suggested that God had His own purposes that neither side fully understood.

Sher: He explained that the devastation of war was possibly a divine price for the sin of slavery, and he closed by saying this: "With malice towards none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan. To do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations." So Lincoln, like Washington, also called for many national fasts and prayers. Both wanted America to humble themselves, and as a nation get right with God so He could bless us in times of war and in times of But I find it interesting that Lincoln, throughout the [00:20:00] war, you can see even in his writing that he is being more bold about calling our country to repent and turn to God, to fast and to pray. The holiday of Thanksgiving was started during the Civil War.

He's trying to remind us of whose we are, this isn't about us and our ideas and our Constitution. This was a gift that God gave to all of us, and Lincoln was asking and hoping that Americans would remember that and humble themselves so that we could reunite as a country and heal our country.

So the Pilgrims, the Puritans, Washington and Lincoln, they believed that God could withdraw his hand from America. They believed the covenant was real, and so were the consequences of breaking it. So going back to the idea of American exceptionalism, our founders believed America was exceptional because of God.

He blesses and gave us the gift of our natural rights. The [00:21:00] government was established to protect our God-given rights by the consent of the governed. Our founders understood only a virtuous people could be free, and they understood that we could be a city on a hill to be an example as John Winthrop said, "To do justly, to love mercy, to walk humbly with our God or we shall shame the faces of many of God's worthy servants and cause their prayers to be turned into curses upon us, till we be consumed out of the good land."

So I don't know about you, but I prefer the option that we follow God, keep the covenant that as a nation our founders made with Him, and be a positive example to each other and to the world, and then we can remain free.

Cydni: We hope as we learn more, especially me since I'm learning, since I didn't read this. I just sat here like a student, but a good, well-behaved student. I didn't doodle. I paid attention. I didn't even get on my phone. So I didn't know if you wanted to compliment me, but you can now if you want. 

Sher: You did a really good job, Cydni.

Cydni: Oh, stop. Thanks. But we [00:22:00] do hope that all of us can prepare to fast July 5th, that we can go like I said before, with the intention to get something beautiful out of this. And joseph Smith shared this: "The saints can testify whether I'm willing to lay down my life for my brethren.

It has been demonstrated that I have been willing to die for a, quote, Mormon. I am bold to declare before Heaven that I am just as ready to die in defending the rights of a Presbyterian, Baptist, or a good man of any other denomination for the same principle which would trample upon the rights of the Latter Day Saints would trample upon the rights of the Roman Catholics or of any other denomination who may be unpopular, or too weak to defend themselves. It is a love of liberty which inspires my soul, civil and religious liberty to the whole of the human race."

We challenge you as you prepare for the fast on July [00:23:00] 5th to read the Gettysburg Address. For real, for real. Read it. Or call Sher. She'll read it to you. 

Sher: This brings us to our final thoughts. America's story is not one of accidental greatness. From the moment the pilgrims knelt in covenant before setting foot on this soil, to Washington praying in the snow at Valley Forge, to Lincoln calling a fractured nation back to its founding purpose, there has been a common thread.

Our freedom is a gift, and gifts come with obligations. The founders did not believe America was exceptional because of who we are. They believed we could be exceptional because of whose we are. If we chose to honor that relationship. That choice still belongs to us.

As we celebrate 250 years, the most patriotic thing we can do is to not simply to glorify in what America has been, but to recommit to what she was always meant to be: a people who walk humbly with [00:24:00] God, deal justly one with another, and remain worthy of the blessings we have so generously received. This is our prayer.

From Cydni and Sher. 

Cydni: I just don't know how I accidentally ruined my screen. It's beautiful because the barbecue will be the night before. So we could all still barbecue and then we could fast. So everyone get those ribs in- ... and those mashed po- not mashed potatoes, potato salad. The never-ending potato salad casserole, and then fast. See? The Lord loves us. He didn't ask too much. What if they would have asked us to fast on July 4th?

Sher: that might have been problematic, but we could have done it if the Lord [00:25:00] asked us to do it, right? We can do hard things. 

Cydni: I would have been okay to not prepare food, I'm not stressed. This is gonna be totally fine. I actually feel really confident in us today. I think that means I've had too much caffeine. I'm not gonna listen to the rest. I can't handle anymore. 

Sher: That's fine. He blesses, he blesses, ugh.

Cydni: I'm inspired. Yeah. As your new king, I'm so inspired. Oh, gosh. 

Sher: Thanks for joining us. 

Cydni: We're so glad you're here.