God Bless America
I took this picture in 2018
My home, sweet home
Is America perfect? Is anywhere in the entire world perfect?
Did you or I do anything to “deserve” to be born in a country whose history extols the idea of freedom?
Yes, the idea. The ideal does not exist this side of heaven.
“The Christian optimism is based on the fact that we do not fit into the world.”
“If nothing in this world satisfies me, perhaps it is because I was made for another world.”
I have written in my Bible both of these quotes on pages 1872 and 1873, surrounding Hebrews chapter 11. To me, these words represent two sides of the same coin. We are sojourners, pilgrims making a bit of progress.
Or as the writer of Hebrews says, “aliens and strangers on earth.”
Yes, as Christians, you and I can have an optimism that sees beyond the events of any day, while admitting also that the world we live in cannot provide lasting satisfaction or peace.
Only yesterday, I had occasion to share with friends about a mission trip to Belarus in 1993 and relive the wonder of a trip to Cuba in 2019. For critics of our government and its leaders, travel. See for yourself the effects of governments even more corrupt than our own.
A few good men, like a few of the kings in Israel’s checkered history, emerge from the pages of our nation’s history to protect and serve the people.
On this inauguration day, I look to God, not government, for the future of the land that I love.
Rare to see an empty street in Washington, D.C., 2018
“Right” or “Left,” the streets in America are made for both.
May God continue to shed his grace on you and me.
