And The Truth ...

As we celebrate the 4th of July, please ponder for a moment how we got here.

Not For The Faint Hearted

Just a little while ago, a fellow blogger went through a minor crisis of confidence. It was great to see the "blog support swarm" that answered him and helped him through a rough patch of road, for it is indeed a journey we are on. We exchanged some emails which I thought were rather enlightening and I am very glad to see that he is back in top form. He feels a little foolish about this very brief episode in his life. I just want to iterate a few truths - well, I see them as truths - as to why this happens and why he should take comfort from his experience.

Because things work out whether we like it or not.

WE ALL get discouraged.

Life takes its toll on us because .... We live.
It's that simple. It's not easy. It's not pleasant. Just simple - because, sometimes, life really sucks.

How we respond is important.

How family and friends respond can be even more important.

God tested Job by allowing Satan to take from him all that he loved. In Job 2:9, while Job is lamenting the loss of his entire family and fortune, his wife has this to say to him:

"Are you still holding on to your integrity?

Curse God and die!"

Of course Job responded, "Gee, Thanks honey!"

We need each other - that's why God in His Wisdom created us as social creatures. If you want, please refer to the first chapter of His Owner's Manual, Genesis 2:18 where the Manual states that "...It is not good that the man should be alone." Or futher on in the Manual where it states in Ecclesiastes 4:10 "If one falls down, his friend can help him up. But pity the man who falls and has no one to help him up!"

It's the engineering. We are hardwired if you prefer.

We are all fellow travelers trying to reach the same destination. We really can't describe where we are going, we don't even agree with all the other passengers on how to get there, but we all want the same thing. That's what freedom is. Life, liberty and the pursuit of whatever it is that keeps us sane and happy without pissing off too many other people who are seeking the same thing. That's why good fences make good neighbors.

And we see that all going to hell in a handbasket.

Don't be discouraged, don't give up. We have just joined a decades old battle and the best thing to do is stick together. If you see someone fall, stop what you're doing and help him get back on his or her feet. Dust them off. See what else you can do for them and rejoin the battle as quickly as possible.

Pray for each other - that's really important.
Pray for our Country.

Washington DC Tea Party

The Tea Party express is coming to Washington DC on 9/12.
Lets see how the media hides this as they do most other causes which celebrate non-liberal ideology.

Let there be no doubt.
We are in danger of losing our liberties.
The Declaratoin of Independence states that "... they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights..."
Those rightds are the liberties that we are so proud of and so many of us swore to defend. And they were given to us by God.

We can talk all we want and post dire warnings and cry and shout deprecations but that will not change a thing. As a Nation we have offended God and this is what happens; Israel suffered the same fate after being lead out of Egyptian bondage. We have abandoned the faith of our fathers and will suffer the consequences.

Abraham Lincoln saw perceivced the same danger and on March 30th, 1863, attempted to address a national failure through his Proclamation Appointing a National Fast Day.

I will reproduce this proclamation in part:

And whereas it is the duty of nations as well as of men, to own their dependence upon the overruling power of God, to confess their sins and transgressions, in humble sorrow, yet with assured hope that genuine repentance will lead to mercy and pardon; and to recognize the sublime truth, announced in the Holy Scriptures and proven by all history, that those nations only are blessed whose God is the Lord.

And, insomuch as we know that, by His divine law, nations like individuals are subjected to punishments and chastisements in this world, may we not justly fear that the awful calamity of civil war, which now desolates the land, may be but a punishment, inflicted upon us, for our presumptuous sins, to the needful end of our national reformation as a whole People? We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of Heaven. We have been preserved, these many years, in peace and prosperity. We have grown in numbers, wealth and power, as no other nation has ever grown. But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace, and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us; and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us!

It behooves us then, to humble ourselves before the offended Power, to confess our national sins, and to pray for clemency and forgiveness.

Let us remember the words of wisdom and warning given to us by God in 2 Chronicles 7:14:

"...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 will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land. "

Contrast

THEN:

"Urge all of your men to pray, not alone in church, but everywhere. Pray when driving. Pray when fighting. Pray alone. Pray with others. Pray by night and pray by day. Pray for the cessation of immoderate rains, for good weather for Battle. Pray for the defeat of our wicked enemy whose banner is injustice and whose good is oppression. Pray for victory. Pray for our Army, and Pray for Peace. We must march together, all out for God."

“God of our fathers, who by land and sea have ever lead us to victory, please continue your inspiring guidance in this the greatest of all conflicts. Strengthen my soul so that the weakening instinct of self-preservation, which besets all of us in battle, shall not blind me to my duty to my own manhood, to the glory of my calling, and to my responsibility to my fellow soldiers. Grant to our armed forces that disciplined valor and mutual confidence which insures success in war. Let me not mourn for the men who have died fighting, but rather let me be glad that such heroes have lived. If it be my lot to die, let me do so with courage and honor in a manner which will bring the greatest harm to the enemy, and please, oh Lord, protect and guide those I shall leave behind. Give us the victory, Lord.”

George S. Patton Jr.

NOW:

(CNN) -- For the past eight years, the White House recognized the National Day of Prayer with a service in the East Room, but this year, President Obama decided against holding a public ceremony.

We are now a much poorer nation.
Not financially ... spiritually.