12/06/2018
Ok, I am going to preach a little bit today, so please have some patience with this aging man... this reminiscent American, as I deviate for a day from my typical devotional message. Here are my thoughts, and you can simply mull them over, delete them, or share them as widely as you like. Tomorrow I will be back to our normal devotional format.
Yesterday I watched the funeral ceremony of President George Herbert Walker Bush in Washington D.C., and as I did so, I was struck by the degree of mourning I felt. As I watched, I wondered to myself if today’s young people, who have only known the divisiveness and rouge nature of modern politics and society, could appreciate what used to be. This man who was being Eulogized was not a cut throat, or a back stabber; this man was not intolerant, or ready to skewer those who didn’t agree with him; This man placed God, Family, and Country, ahead of his own well-being.
Having grown older now, I have the privilege of looking back on a time when, as a rule, honor overshadowed personal profit and aspiration, and as I do, I wonder if perhaps the absence of this perspective is why young people today are so accepting of the way our nation behaves. I accept blame, my generation didn’t do a very good job of teaching, and showing them those good and decent attributes that were so evident in George H.W. Bush. My generation allowed institutions such as the press, political organizations, certain religious orders, and others, to negatively influence our core values without feeling the ramifications, or consequence of their doing so.
I fear for my country and the world, but I also fear for the individual souls that are now trapped in this environment of incredible selfishness, bitter vengeance, and hate, towards others with whom there is disagreement. I realized as I sat quietly in my living room chair, that I was mourning much more than the death of a president, but also the passing of a sense of goodness and honor, that in my youth symbolized the United States, and that made our flag venerable; our country and her values worth dying for. I Looked at this goodness, and the noble cause of freedom, through eyes filled with tears and realized that it all poured out from our exercise of faith, and how if that faith could be destroyed then the rest of those things we once valued so deeply would surrender themselves quietly.
So where do we go from here? How can we turn back the demons of this current age? Well, after the funeral ceremony for President George H.W. Bush the coverage flipped back to the talking heads of the various news organizations (I just so happened to be watching on NBC) where there was a palpable feeling of discomfort. They didn’t know how to talk about what had just been displayed... so they fell back on that age old strategy of “THEY.” The three commentators squirmed for a bit as they discussed the need for unity and temperance in America then, after struggling and tripping over their words, and the conviction of the moment, looked to unnamed others, anyone, and asked if “THEY” could really change.
I laughed out loud at this. These three somehow thought themselves above the Fracas, but I had watched many newscasts where each of them participated mightily in the divisiveness, and they had mud all over them. We will never fix our country and society until each one of us learns to accept responsibility for our own intolerant actions, and sweeps the floor of his individual character; ridding it of spitefulness, anger, jealousy, bitterness, and those other ingredients that come together in us to make this American political, and societal, stew so distasteful. It is never just “THEY”, but a little bit of each of us, and it will continue its downward spiral until we turn our exercise of intolerance away from each other... and back towards the very nature of those things which are at the heart of that intolerance which is infecting each of us today. To the young I say “no it hasn’t always been this way”, and “Yes, we can change”; to those who feel that they can continue to advance their cause, and themselves, by attacking those they disagree with versus participating in civil discussion and compromise... you are wrong hearted, and this tactic is destroying our country, our world, and you. The ruse of such a strategy, and its rhetoric, has not gone unnoticed, and your verbiage regarding your love for our country and your God is a thin veil we can all see through.
It is more than time to mop up the floor of our combined character, and take our faith back from the shelf where it has been nearly forgotten, dust it off, and begin living in a manner that extols virtue, honor, goodness, and true Righteousness. We can take a lesson from President George H.W. Bush, His life, and the friends that he surrounded himself with. Do you have a friend who will rub, massage, and wash your twisted and aging feet when the time draws near for you to meet God? Do you have a spouse that you love so dearly that you can’t fathom being without? Do you have a country that you value so greatly you would be willing to lay your life and your future down for it? Do you have a God that changes your life from that of an aggressor to one of a humble servant? These are the questions that ran through my mind as I wept for today’s world and the loss of this man we were honoring... one whose passing had left a hole in each of us.
How will we personally answer these questions, and to whom will we turn for the truth regarding them? There is no man, institution, or order, that can do this for us... it takes something that I, as a Christian, learned long ago from the Bible; from scripture:
“Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure. Do all things without grumbling or disputing, that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world, holding fast to the word of life, so that in the day of Christ I may be proud that I did not run in vain or labor in vain.”
Philippians 2:12-16 ESV
It takes faith, and is not too late...
“if my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.”
2 Chronicles 7:14 ESV
Are you able to change? Yes you are! The real question is... Are you willing to change?
Rich Forbes