As a nation, we have come a long ways from our founding roots – which has not been a good thing. It seems that our country is more politically divided than I ever recall and values that we once held dear and precious seemingly have been discarded for an “anything goes” approach. Absolutes have morphed into relativism. The following good words speak into this confusion of the day.
“We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of Heaven. We have been preserved these many years in peace and prosperity. We have grown in numbers, wealth and power as no other nation has ever grown.
But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious Hand which preserved us in peace, and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us; and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own.
Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us!
It behooves us then to humble ourselves before the offended Power, to confess our national sins and to pray for clemency and forgiveness.”
While these words clearly speak to our contemporary culture, they were penned well over 150 years ago, in a national proclamation given by Abraham Lincoln on March 30, 1863. If, as a people, we “vainly imagined” that we had pulled this off on our own in 1863, how much further have we wandered in 2020?
If we are to be a people who live with a clear and anchored purpose, it is essential that we acknowledge the God who has provided us with the strength, opportunities, and guidance!