…With malice toward 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. –Abe Lincoln (16th President of the United States, 2nd inaugural address Saturday March 4, 1865)
More than anything I am tired of “Christians” hurling stupid remarks about our nation’s president as if God does not hear them. I am tired of men and women of God who slander our leaders, and don’t take the time of day to pray for them. So the question should really be, would Lincoln be ashamed of our nation’s leaders? Or would he be ashamed of America’s people? I say people. I say God’s people.
Recently on facebook there was a fan group that said, “God you took my favorite actress, Farah Fawcett, you took my favorite actor Patrick Swayze, you took my favorite singer Michael Jackson, by the way my favorite president in Barack Obama.” When I first saw this I swore. I really did. And I had to repent. How dare any of us join a filthy, dirty, ugly, betraying, horrible, slandering, God hating, country hating, hypocritical, group such as this! I was even more appalled to see people from my church joining this group. If you joined SHAME ON YOU! I was angry, furious, and embarrassed.
Furthermore it is time that Americans stop having to identify, as if by force, with a political party. Anytime some small remark is made, whether it be right or left, the whole world freaks out. Washington has become a political stand out. Even worse, the church has become a political war-zone. We care more about our identity in a elephant or donkey than we do the Almighty God! Republicans did not form this nation! Democrats had nothing to do with it! It was men of God, seeking God, and obeying God. The hand of God was our fashion not a political remark on some overdrawn issue.
While in D.C. I saw some of the most incredible things! I was moved to tears by almost everything. The magnitude of this nation is incredible. Our freedom is amazing. And I am grateful for every man and woman that serve as a voice in our Republic. The time and effort that they put in is astonishing and they all need our prayers. We need to be grateful for what we have. Furthermore seeing the monuments of war, and the sacrifices that men have made for this nation is a solemn thing. This nation is more than a “melting pot” it is a nation founded on God and on the backs of men who were willing to lay everything down.
Part II- The Supreme Court (Coming Soon)
Let me tell you that I am not qualified to even write a book like this. I would not dare in all my wildest dreams try to. But I am writing it anyway. Just like everyone in the world (any human) I feel the need to voice what my insides scream. Have you ever been at that strange point in time where you just wanted to talk? If you say that you have not, you are either a liar, or you are too scared to admit that you are living a normal life. Odd.
Yet, I must be honest with anyone who speaks with me or reads this book, I am a genius. I only say that because at one time or another I came to the conclusion that I did not have everything figured out and nor do I have to. Thinking this deeply puts a hard notch in the brain. Actually I think this book is more of a memoir, which I write a lot of. I need help.
If I were to tell anyone anything about me, it would be that I love God with all my heart. I do, I really do. I would go so far to say that He is all that matters in life. There is really nothing else that compares to him. Nothing is sufficient enough to fill the void in my life that I was born with. But by accepting, in the most humble way mind you, that God loves me and that he sent His son to die for me, has changed my perspectives on every hard situation.
How simple life is, and somehow we complicate it. It’s almost as if God is existing and we just get in his way of his plan for the globe. We set plans and agendas not knowing that God’s is so much bigger. So big that we dwell in it, all of us! And so many moments of my life have been focused on this. I remind myself as much as I can, that time is only my enemy. I appreciate it for my own gain, but it is not convenient when God is on the line.
I just want to smash something!!
Oh.
And in this large quantity of odd ended, flabbergasted, un-even jargon I must tell a story.
Attempting to focus blame when you are in the complete and utter wrong is suicidal. Here is the proof.
I recently, well on a regular basis, find my self in a spot of trouble because of a sticky situation. It’s not that I am a bad kid, it’s just that life happens and like anyone I am bound to do something ridiculous and not called for along the way.
I was at a friends house… (wait this just starts bad)… and we were swimming in his pool, which was fine because summer days pack unwanted heat!!! However, I still wish that is how the lovely story ended. Sometimes, and since I can only say this with a smile, I am glad that my friends make mistakes, because as much as we all hate making them, we somehow, in God’s grand design learn a great deal from them. “You make all things work together for my good!”
Moving on…
Well we were swimming. It was hot out; A dire heat that strained every bit of energy from the unexplainable sources. Yuck!
But you know, as anyone does, that a group of five guys, and five guys only, can be on the slight side of destructive. Somehow in the midst of our fun, we decided that throwing, tossing, chucking, or a combination of all, metal objects into a vinyl pool. Yes! You heard it.
It started out as child’s play, a chair here an oversized fichus tree, a random assortment of books, things on fire, but… how can you top off all the destructiveness a man singly handedly holds in his pubescent mind? You see, it ended with the most unlikely object imaginable, a cymbal. Now a parent, or any normal person, and even I question the logic in my thinking. Why on earth would anyone throw a metal object with the word “LETHAL” written all over it into a precious $35,000 pool?
That unfortunately will never be answered. Only an idiot would accomplish this, and that is exactly what we did.
As the cymbal sank into the depth of a six foot price tag, little did we know that it would slice the tender bottom of the pool and cost us the frustration of dealing with a very angry mother, well three to be exact, plus the money, and the battle with the right way to repair it.
Regardless, never throw a cymbal in a pool. It is just a bad idea.
A few summers ago (not exactly sure since the humidity of the Missouri air erased my memory.) I spent the fourth of July on my deceased Great Grandmother’s farm, whom I respectfully called “Cow Grandma” from the youngest age I have been. It was an unforgettable trip. It was the first summer that I had my license. I had driven with my father asleep and my iPod on shuffle through Nebraska, Kansas and the lovely state of Iowa. But my story is not about that, no not at all. There is not much interesting about the open road. Unless we debate about why there are millions of construction sites, always unattended, and yet your forced to go another 40 miles under the speed limit for the safety of the these ghostly union workers. No it truly takes place on the farm, and the adventures that I shared with my brother.
My great Uncles, whom I love and adore with my heart, are rednecks. Without hesitation they relieved the doldrums of the day for me and my brother with two ATV’s that were covered in a camp like print with AK-47’s and 7 feet machetes strapped to the sides. As we started them up we took them onto the empty country road that spanned the state and rode to the pasture that was nearby to test our masculine aura. Once on the pasture we road through the mud around the pond multiple times causing pits of dirty water to flood through the tender earth.
After some time, we began to find new paths that were more daring and expressible to my growing and engaged testosterone levels. As I sped up so did my brother and we taunted each other. I finally decided to take another path, hoping to cut him off. But I was pushing 60 with little room to go. As I came across my brother’s path I stared at him rather than in front of me where there was a pond and a log with the ability to knock me clean off the seat. Before I knew it I was flying through the air, screaming a profane word, and landing in the hot steamy pond with the ATV rolling behind me and eventually sinking in the mud. All this could have been prevented if I was just looking at the path ahead of me.
So many times we do this in our life’s. We get so caught up in a moment, or we look back on our past, or we get distracted by those around us that we forget to look forward and Focus on God. We set goals that can be achieved, but unless we have our eyes in the right place we will never reach them. We do all that we can, and struggle even, to do all we are called to do in our own strength when God is waiting for the moment we just rely on him. Somehow we have allowed the thought that we found God, and that we found salvation when in reality it was him who reviled himself to us, and that it’s his love that sustains the relationship. If was based on our faithfulness than we would be hopeless and the point of Christ would have been left pointless.
The lesson I have learned this year is to just trust him. He is able. He is after all God of the universe. Although I fall short, daily even, I know that God is faithful. Even when I am faithful I can never amount to who God is. I keep reminding myself to keep my eyes on Jesus, and not focus on anything else. If I focus on finding and searching things out for my own sake, I take my trust from God and end up putting it in something that is faithless and will end up disappointing me. Anyway, it’s just something to think about.
