Sunday message- how important is saving America?

When I went to bed Sunday night, I was listening to a program that regularly discusses items that they consider, for want of a better way to put it, the conspiratorial side of the secular world's attack on the Church.  It was one of their topics that upset me even though I shouldn't let it.  You see, one of my crosses is occasionally having spells where "depression looking for something to be depressed about" sets in.  And their talk on "how Marxists have an agenda to take control of America" led me into thoughts about where our country is headed.  You see, I'm just not a conspiracy theorist- I'm more of an Isaiah 8:12 kinda guy.  And I realize that what they try to explain as conspiracies can actually be no more than the natural result of fallen man falling farther away from God as the years go by.  But one thing the guest on the show (filmmaker Curtis Bowers) said struck home.  He said that when you consider the leftist education our children have been getting over the past 50 years, and the success rate for turning them to leftist thought, his experts calculate that 2016 is the last election that we will have any chance to get a conservative President in- after that, there will simply be too many voting age young people that have been turned to win without a large part of them not voting.


And that worried me.  You know, we aren't talking "the guy you disagree with but can still have a decent discussion with" type of voters, we are talking the hardened "America is at fault for everything and if you don't agree then you are a racist/bigot/homophobe" type.  Like the kind on last week's Martin World News post that thought that JFK's "Ask not..." line was the height of evil, because it puts you in the position of being a contributor instead of a parasite.

I know a LOT of little children.  And my first thought in these times are, what chance do they have?  How do we as parents, assuming we even care, educate our children to seek the TRUTH?  And when we look at that question, we get some pretty decent answers.

First- DON'T ASSUME, CARE.  As parents and grandparents, we ARE the first line, the ones that our children should trust the most.  Which means you owe it to them to EDUCATE YOURSELF.  Does that mean I should get on the conspiracy websites, watch all the debates and the Sunday morning news shows, etc.?  Not necessarily.  Let me come back to that when I tie my point up.  What I do mean is this:

Deuteronomy 11:18"You shall therefore impress these words of mine on your heart and on your soul; and you shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontals on your forehead. 19"You shall teach them to your sons, talking of them when you sit in your house and when you walk along the road and when you lie down and when you rise up. 20"You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates,…


THAT is what they need to know- and YOU need to know how to do it.

Second- As Pontius Pilate said, "What is truth?"  Well, that's where you need to examine what is being taught.  I have been a voracious reader of history since second grade, and if you think even a Catholic education (Which was far superior to a public school education in my day) teaches you what you need to know, forget it.  I have read two books in just the last few months- one on the aftermath of WWII, another on the formation of Israel- that really shook my own "got that part down" mentality and made me realize that there are yet layers that I don't know about things I was once sure of.

You know well the ongoing battle of whether America's Founding Fathers wanted or espoused a Christian Nation.  People on both side look up sayings on BrainyQuote or ThinkExist (for the atheists out there) and parse them in order to make their point.  If you want to use a quote to make a point on something controversial, read a biography or two first, so you know WHY the person said it.  The fact that the majority of Americans would rather use shallow, easy to feel sources for their "information" tells you everything you need to know why Donald Trump was polling 63% as the winner of the past week's GOP debate and Rubio only 11%.  Don't watch the show, don't listen to the responses and see what makes SENSE.  Just vote your guy, hell or high water.

Which finally gets me to my point, which is:  Shows like the one I listen to can be informative, but you need perspective.  Line up the conspiracy arguments, the Constitutional arguments, the Founding Father arguments all you want.  God does not place America- or anything else- above HIS plan, HIS goals.  Get up from that debate, walk away from that facebook argument, and go outside.  See God in His created world.  Look at the sky, the sun, the stars, the clouds.  Watch the leaves sprout, the animals going about their business, and realize- all that other stuff is meaningless.  The BIG picture is just you and God.  Our job is not to protect America for God.  Our job is to give God ourselves, so that He can use us to BUILD a better America, or Australia, or where ever else on the big blue marble you live.