I love that we celebrate the birth of our country on July 4th. We could have chosen October 19th (the date that Cornwallis surrendered at Yorktown). We could have chosen September 3rd or January 14th (when the Treaty of Paris was signed and ratified, respectively). There are probably a few other dates the could have been chosen, but we chose July 4th. Choosing July 4th is our nation's way of signifying that freedom begins when you stand up and declare yourself free.
There's something remarkably prophetic in that choice of date. Prophets stand up and declare a new reality. They are able to see a world that does not yet exist except in their mind's eye. The job of the prophet is to speak this vision into reality. The Declaration of Independence is a prophetic document, because it casts a vision of a world that did not exist (and would not exist for many hard-fought years to come).
Our choice of July 4th as the nation's birthday is prophetic because it pinpoints the moment when something was born that had not been before. Clearly that something is not an independent free nation--that didn't exist on July 4th, 5th, or even the 6th. What was born that day was not the reality of America, but the idea of America. That America is--first and foremost--an idea is something astounding.
