I Love America

Here's part of a letter I wrote to my Polish friend, Damian:

 

I wish I could meet you in Spain!  I would absolutely love to go there for a little time.  I think you are so lucky to live in the EU and to have an EU passport.  Of course, I'm proud to be an American, but it also makes me very sad spiritually.  We are coming up on the 4th of July week which is the time when everyone displays American flags and the most patriotism is shown.  But... it makes me sad because although I love America; it hurts me to see us so spiritually depraved.  We have run so far from our Christian roots.  It's seems like we're actually ashamed of them.  I don't understand it.  It hurts my heart to know how much this country is greiving God.  Maybe our morality right now isn't all that much worse than other countries, but I think it makes it worse that we used to be so heavily Christian based and now, within the last 50 years or so, we have run headstrong away from Him.  It's almost like we've slapped God in the face and run away.  It's such a strange thing to wonder how we got here.

 

Last night I went to a 4th of July church musical at a large Baptist church in Huntsville.  They put it on every year.  It's called "I Love America", and it involves a huge singing flag and drama and special handmade video (handmade by my brother! :-) and many other moving parts.  It always makes you proud to live here...

 

Sort of.  I was very surprized that there was absolutely no mention of America's hugely messed up state right now.  No one mentioned of how we have turned our backs on the very God we talk about in every historical document.  Did you know that EVERY single preamble to the state constitutions make mention of God, thanking God, or being appreciative to "Divine Guidance" or something very similar?  But we've completely erased Him from our history books.  For the last fifty years, we've done our very best to push Him as far from our mouths as possible, and for the last 40 years we've pushed him away spiritually as well.

 

Many preachers have been blasted for saying that 9-11 and Huricane Katrina were some sort of divine punishment.  I seriously doubt it.  A warning... maybe.  But there's no way it could have been punishment.  If God was in the business of retaliation or revenge on our spiritual state, we would have been wiped out a long time ago.  Did we deserve those two catastrophies?  As a nation... yeah.  Definitely.  "It rains on the just and the unjust."  Some very wonderful, righteous, and truly holy people were affected by recent tragedies.  But not one "good" city was hurt.  Those horrible things could have happened anywhere in the continental US and they wouldn't have affected a truely "good" city.

 

We are messed up.  And the sad thing is that we're too arrogant and puffed up to admit it.  We'd rather just ignore the warnings (whatever they looks like) and keep on our merry way.  If this is the path America is going to take... we won't last long.

 

I'm still proud to be an American, but only because I believe there are still some people out there whose deffinition of "America" still includes some of that beautiful (though flawed), hard-fought, Christ-centered history.

 

God... don't bless America... teach us.  If You truly love us, discipline us.  Don't let us turn ourselves into illigitemate children by ignoring Your correction.  Turn our hearts back to you.

 

Christians... pray that God would say of us as He said of Israel:

"I will give them a heart to know me, that I am the Lord.  They will be my people, and I will be their God, for they will return to me with all their heart."