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God bless America
By Julie | July 7, 2008
The Old Testament is a promise, to the Israelites, that if they follow God’s commands, they will be blessed, richly, beyond their wildest dreams. When they followed God, they went to battle far outnumbered, and still completely destroyed their opposition. Over and over again they were victorious when common sense should have told them they’d never win. But, then they’d get cocky, and turn from God, and to other gods, and little incidents would knock them off their pedestals.
Until finally, after many centuries, many warnings from the prophets, and signs from God, the Jewish people were exiled. Their temple was destroyed. Many of them were killed. Most survivors were drug off to another land, and lived as slaves under King Nebuchadnezzar’s rule. Some of them, like Daniel, showed such moral, good character, that they were elevated to noble positions. But most of them did nothing worthy enough to get a mention.
These Jewish people were stripped from their homes, their lands, and often families were separated. They lost their country and their leadership. Suddenly, new laws governed them; laws they had no say in. The only way of the life they’d ever known was taken. Many of them were forced into captivity, to what? Wonder if their family members were even alive?
Then I look at our own country. From nothing, we set up a government that has lasted over two hundred years. Our constitution, with minimal additions, has lasted over two hundred years. The people living in our country today were not responsible for writing the documents we live under. For millions of Americans, we don’t know any other way of living. It’s easy, since we have always been privileged to live with freedom, to criticize the reasons our founding countrymen stood up to fight. We have never had the same vision they had, because they defeated some of our barriers and gave us our foundation. For their ideas to last over two hundred years, I’d say they did a better job than their critics would have. They still deserve our thanks.
But for me as a believer, it is inarguable, that God has protected and blessed our country for over two hundred years. Biblically, we have had to be standing on good principles, with people of faith, for such a blessing to have continued throughout the centuries. No, we have not always behaved honorably. But we have obviously been doing some things right to receive so much of God’s blessings.
But that’s not popular to say today. We’ve become an arrogant country, believing we’ve done it all ourselves. Is that attitude wise? God could still, at any time, strip us of all we have, if he chose to. If we provoke him. Ignore him. Or ridicule him. If we say, “God? What God? We don’t need God; we built this all ourselves!” He could show us just how little we are capable of on our own.
After just celebrating the 4th of July I find myself wanting to scream, “God bless America!” Because you certainly don’t have to read far into the Old Testament to be scared of the alternative. Or to be pleasantly overwhelmed by the goodness received by men and women who followed God.
God bless America! Because I really don’t want to discover if a nation divided against God can stand. I think we’ve already been shown a good example.
