What is the basis of hope in America today?
America began, rooted in debtors and misfits, as an unlikely contender in world affairs. Our nation was founded on some of the poorest, outcasts in the world. The inscription at the Statue of Liberty says it perfectly:
Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!
From the wretched refuse, America grew to be the most influential nation on earth. Our Founding Fathers believed America was given by God Himself. Am I certain of this? No, but I do think it’s possible. I believe God speaks to us. I believe God communicates in non-verbal ways even more often.
I know that, as a single mom of five boys, I thank God every day that my boys and I live here. I know that if I lived in an area where Sharia Law is imposed (such as Dearborn, Michigan), I would have no rights, including the right to my own children. For a single mother living under Sharia Law, child support is not an issue because she would not get custody. I cannot imagine the heartbreak of having my husband leave and then being denied my children too. Sharia Law also permits honor killings, so a woman accused of infidelity by a husband who is tired of her could be stoned to death.
If I lived in other parts of the world the only “job” offered to me might be prostitution. This means my chance of dying of HIV-AIDS, especially if I lived in an African nation, is increased exponentially and my children would likely grow up alone hungry and dirty and scared – beyond scared – terrified. Or not grow up at all.
And certainly, no one would teach them about the Love of a Perfect Father.
No one would teach them about the sacrifice of a Savior willing to give His life for them.
And no one would teach them about real Hope.
So America, built on the backs of those poor misfits, became the land of opportunity, but what brought our ancestors here? There must have been fear in their arrival, confusion at a strange language and culture, embarrassment when they didn’t fit in.
And yet, I believe Hope drove them. When you call up the courage to move to a new area, a place completely different from all you grew up knowing, to make a positive change, you also call up hope.
Hope that things will be better, that there will be more opportunity, that there will be greater freedom, that there will be a better life in that new place. Hope that life will be stable and steady and secure and safe.
Where does that Hope come from? The only stable, steady, secure, safe force is the Love of a one unchanging, all-powerful, all-knowing God.
When our ancestors held onto Hope given to them by God, they prospered. Hard times were part of their lives – a big part, and yet still they held out Hope. When they turned to idols, their societies crashed. We see this over and over in the Bible and in modern history; yet we are slow learners.
We, as a people, continuously turn away from the Lord toward false idols. Idols wanting us to believe that hope comes from them. Smooth talking idols who lure people into giving up healthcare decisions, approving federally funded abortion on demand, and participating in gay marriage (Come back for my M is for Marriage post!).
Idols with differing outward appearances, but the same message of prosperity only through them – through their message, through reliance on them. This message has not changed. The deception has not changed.
But neither has real Hope changed because true Hope comes from the eternal, unchanging Lord.
The one True Hope for our country does not come from change. It comes from what those who built America knew hundreds of years ago.
Only one man brings Hope to an entire world,
and He is not painted red, white, and blue on a poster.
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So apparently people who support gay marriage are committing idolatry because they aren’t following what the Bible says? Some things to think about : “Idolatry is not the use of images, but confusing them with what they represent, and in this respect mental images and lofty abstraction can be more insidious than bronze idols. ”
Alan Watts
Hi Joey, Welcome to Single Mom Smiling and thanks for taking the time to comment. I think the Bible is pretty clear on homosexual relationships. I’m not sure it’s because of idolatry though or for other reasons. I think, in many cases, both homosexuals and heterosexuals, have taken sex, something beautiful and good and exciting, and turned it into something base, something to be idolized.
You are also absolutely right that idolatry does not come solely from images but from what they represent. When we look at the breakdown of the family and what it has done to society because we have replaced consent and emotion with God’s laws, because we have replaced idolizing our own desires over Biblical teachings and what history has shown to be true, it is hard to be for gay marriage or divorce or extra marital sex or any number of diverse paths to pleasure. None of these is an image, but each is a form of idolatry.
That said, God gave us all free will to choose what we do. Although I disagree with gay marriage, I fault no one for choosing to be gay. I am imperfect and therefore not qualified to judge. I am also not accountable for anyone else’s decisions; however, I will be held accountable for teaching my children what the Bible says is right and what is wrong. Our schools and country now discriminate against me and my beliefs. Why are we teaching moral issues at all? Why not stick to reading, writing, and arithmetic? When the pendulum eventually swings the other way, whether it is in our lifetime or not, I hope those who do not support the gay lifestyle are not tolerant of it – I hope they do respect and Love the people involved in it, a much greater calling than mere tolerance.
We are called to Love all people. We are not called to agree with all people or with everything any one person says or does. I can Love the gay community without loving their actions.
God Bless You Joey and thanks again.
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