http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHCrFA2X26I&feature=channel_video_title

Today, I listened to a local Christian radio station for the better part of ten hours while I worked in the sunshine. As I turned and looked around me, I saw the flat farmland of the upper American Midwest. The sky was blue, not gray with smaug, or smoke from a recent terrorist attack. I heard the neighbors playing in the back yard with their new dog, and there was a kitchen full of food for me to eat whenever I wanted it. I was free to listen to my radio, and I was free to lay on the deck of my family, and I was free to breathe and dream of greater opportunity. Because this is America, and that is the life we are blessed to have. It’s what we take for granted every day.

As the afternoon faded on, the topics on this station ranged from athiests upset about the addition of a cross made of rubble being added to the 911 memorial, holiness and purity in Christian life, and the weather,  to the ever changing American economy. I was reminded again how everyone has an opinion on the matters of Washington. There is always someone to blame, and there’s always someone with no right solution. There are people to argue with one another, and there are citizens who will speak about how they don’t have enough.

Look around us. Wherever you are in America, you have more than enough. I can promise you that.

1 Corinthians 6:20 says that we were bought with a price. That price was the blood of God’s One and only Son, Jesus Christ. He’s the Alpha and Omega. The beginning and the end. He looks at me in my death and calls me into life. He’s my protector. He’s my adversary. He’s my future and my past. He’s my hope, and life, and light in the darkness. He will never leave me without hope. He has given me life, and life abundant, and He has sacrificed, to save me, and to tell me that I am dearly, dearly loved.

And then there’s America. At the discussion of a default of 14 trillion dollars of money that was in truth, stolen from others, I can only stop breathing at what God must see when He looks at this country. I listened to democrats fight republicans, people cling to their money tighter than the morals they threw away years ago, and my heart broke. Because we, as sinful people, have wrecked what was so beautifully given to us. We think that our money is our life, and we think that our lack of ethics and honor for our Father will lead us to the dream life we want.

Most would say it’s unfortunate, (I beg to differ) but at a very young age, I learned the pain of a heart break. I lost a leg. My hair. Days of my life in a hospital. Best friend after best friend after best friend. And it hurt me. But I didn’t pay anything for those things. I didn’t buy any of those things at a price. They were given to me, freely, so they could leave freely. And yet, I was broken hearted over it.

I wonder what God’s heart feels like.

I wonder how He can chase forever such stupid sheep that have left him for such garbage.

How He bears the pain of those He was willing to give all for.

And as my eyes fill with tears, I see that we, as a country, will either fall hard, or we will be taken back to the contentment of His heart, when all the things our debt has padded us with are taken away. It could be hard for a while. They say it could be as bad at the Great Depression. Should we have seen it coming? Yes, absolutely. Are we ready? Maybe not.

But what is God ready for?

To have his children back. So that for a moment, His heart won’t have to shatter over us all.

This is not an economic matter. This is a Jesus matter, in ever single wordly heart.

I’m excited for America’s future. Because as life fails on earth, it will only give way to His children learning life eternal. And that is all that we live for.

Praise the Lord!

…because love wins.