Dependency

I believe dependency on God opens the door to true security, life and freedom. (Isaiah 43) It is available no other way.
Dependency on government or other powers kills your spirit. (Psalm 146:3, Psalm 118:8-9) These powers lack commitment to you.
Dependency on self leads to disappointment when you discover your limitations. (Matthew 7:42, Galatians 5:17)
Dependency on God enlarges your spirit and transcends your limitations, for God's commitment to His sons and daughters is complete and His resources are unlimited.
Fear of evil, death, pain or punishment may cloud the reality of God's provision, but Christ has conquered these and promised to deliver His people to a new life and kingdom where peace (shalom) prevails. (John 16:33, 1 Corinthians 15:50-58) Christ has removed the causes for fear by means of the sacrifice He made of Himself on the cross and His ensuing resurrection.
Therefore dependency on God's commitment opens the door to true life, security, freedom - and I would add joy - and bears us up in the trials of this life.

Sanctuary from everything federal ...

Americans who want their cities to be "sanctuaries" for violators of federal law might properly go a step further and declare themselves free of ALL federal law. If one can selectively nullify a U.S. law, why not nullify the whole package? Including the U.S. Constitution.

Sounds absurd, doesn't it?

Is it any less absurd to rob your fellow citizens of the protection of a law that penalizes people who sneak into our country, or enter by deceit, or violate the terms of legal visas?

If you want people to have legal sanctuary who enter this way, shouldn't you make your case to the body that has jurisdiction over such questions - the United States Congress?

If you won't do that, will you at least have concern for your neighbors? I mean, stop asking state and local governments to encourage violation of federal law. They are authorities charged with protecting us, your neighbors. What makes it right to endanger your neighbors to indulge your philosophical or political opinion?

A spiritual plague ...

Our nation, like other nations, is experiencing a spiritual plague. We collectively and individually have doubted the authority of God and in many cases the existence of God. This often is true of Christians as well as others.

We Christians sometimes believe in a watered down Christ, or a Christ whom we embellish with our own will instead of diligently seeking His. In safe and prosperous times this attitude seems alright. In unruly hard times (like the present) the error should be obvious, but it often becomes obvious only after it has caused a lot of damage.

What Christians believe and do has a great influence - good or bad - on the community around us. The prophet Jeremiah identified the response God wanted from His people in a time when Israel was subdued and exiled in Babylon, having been defeated by King Nebuchadnezzar. They were at the mercy of hostile conquerors, but God commanded "... seek the peace of the city where I have caused you to be carried away captive, and pray to the Lord for it; for in its peace you will have peace." Jeremiah 29:7

The unruliness of America today stems from a spiritual problem, and I believe spiritual problems call for spiritual solutions. If the church of Jesus Christ prays in the way Jeremiah described, the church will move toward peace and the nation around us will do the same. How do I know this? God promises.

"When I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or command the locust to devour the land, or send pestilence among my people, 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 7:13-14

Shock and awful ...

"But because shock events destabilize a society, they can also be used positively. We do not have to respond along old fault lines. We could just as easily reorganize into a different pattern that threatens the people who sparked the event." So wrote Heather Richardson in the Dallas Morning News.

Who can disagree that the manner in which the president's executive order on immigration was put in place last weekend, was a shock?

It WAS a shock. To that extent I concur in Heather Richardson's opinion piece. However, I have no way of knowing whether it's motive was to shock people, or whether the author was the president's advisor Steve Bannon. Perhaps it makes no difference.

I also agree - to a limited extent - that the shock presents an opportunity. Not an opportunity for "threatening the people who sparked the event", but for collaborating with Congress and the White House to refine and explain the policy.

Ms. Richardson's piece provoked me to reflect more deeply on what is happening as a result of the order. As usual for almost a decade, the news media took sides and members of Congress retreated into opposing corners then came out fighting.

Isn't it time Congress functioned as a refiner of policy rather than an arena for mortal combat?

In my view Congress has failed too long to cooperate with one another and fulfill its constitutional role of advising and checking the president. All Members, House and Senate, Democrat and Republican, have a serious stake in maintaining the functionality of their respective chambers. Does Congress want to become as nonfunctional as the human appendix?

The prolonged dysfunction of Congress may at least partly explain the wracking chaos of the recent primaries, general election, and post election periods.

Both parties-all parties-are stakeholders in our constitutional republic. We still have the implements of a republic. Let's go back to using them so we can keep it!

Pray boldly, not hesitantly ...

"Three things may give boldness in prayer. We have a Father to pray to, and the Spirit to help us to pray, and an Advocate to present our prayers. God's children should in all their troubles run to their heavenly Father, as the sick child in 2 Kings 4: 19: ‘He said unto his father, My head, my head.' So pour out thy complaint to God in prayer. ‘Father, my heart, my heart; my dead heart, quicken it; my hard heart, soften it in Christ's blood. Father, my heart, my heart.' Surely God, who hears the cry of ravens, will hear the cry of his children!"
Thomas Watson, The Lord's Prayer.

Night Flight: Climbing out of Baltimore

February 4, 2016

One evening last week my wife Barbara and I flew out of Baltimore's BWI airport en route to Dallas after a brief visit with our Virginia and Maryland family. Out the window I watched as the lights of the Washington,DC metropolitan area spread out horizon to horizon.

I love looking at city lights from above. In my teens and early 20s I served as a crew member on an Air Force transport plane. One evening after dropping off passengers at Washington,DC, we headed cross country to Dayton, Ohio to drop off a few more passengers. We had left Puerto Rico earlier in the day, and by now it had gotten dark.

Sitting on a jumpseat between the two pilots, I watched the lights of cities and towns roll up from the horizon, loom and disappear under us. It was like breasting waves of darkness and light. This short night flight, from Washington to Dayton showed me a majestic America that still lives in my heart.
It made me proud to serve the people these brilliant passing clusters of light represented.

Leaving Baltimore last week I had a similar feeling as I watched darkness replace the lights of cities and towns as our Boeing jet climbed and set course to Dallas. Then questions began arising in my mind as the wind passed by my window.

What would happen to our people if suddenly all the lights in America went out, or even became significantly more dim? A memory of the New York City blackout of 1977 passed briefly through my mind; pictures of looting, rioting, and arson. This memory was quickly replaced by darker questions.

Has the light dimmed in America? Is the light going out?

Teaching His first disciples on the mountain, Jesus said: "You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden."

How much light are we modern disciples shedding in our land? How many of us are looking more like shadow than light?

These questions left a much different feeling than the feeling I had as an airman on my night flight from Washington to Dayton in the late '60s.

"You are the light of the world", said Jesus Christ to His disciples. How true is this of me? How true is this of Jesus' modern church?

The feeling I have as I write is not the majestic  feeling I enjoyed decades ago, as cities passed beneath our military wings en route to Dayton. Instead what I feel now is God prodding me to turn more directly to the light and get some to share with the troubled people of this present time.

Published previously on Facebook

No U.S. History for History Majors?

"... the overwhelming majority of America's most prestigious institutions do not require even the students who major in history to take a single course on United States history or government."

From, No US History? How College History Departments Leave the United States out of the Major, Study by the American Council of Trustees and Alumni, published July 2016

https://www.goacta.org/images/download/no_u_s_history.pdf