Best Wishes, Little Brother!

Today was a happy day! My baby brother got married. It was the joining of two family fragments--the start of old scars healing, ragged edges becoming smooth again.
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There will be some adjustments, a few bumps not present the first time around, but lessons learned along the way will help cement this new bond against the stresses and cracks that forever threaten those vows.
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I'm glad to see him happy again and and thankful to the woman who makes him that way.
Welcome to the family, Debbie!

What Happened to We The People?

This is a photo of a small portion of the over 2 million Americans who marched on Washington just days ago, demanding our country back. Two million peaceful but fed-up Americans standing together against what they see as the socialist take-over of our country.
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Where was the media?
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Fox News was the only televised source of factual information on what should have been the lead story on every newscast. Had this been a gathering of abortion-rights activists, homosexuals, or Obama supporters, it would have headlined for days! Yet, the story was buried in most media outlets and given only the smallest whisper when it was mentioned at all.
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This frightens me more than anything to date. We have been conditioned to expect fairly accurate reports from the national media and when something of this magnitude is so blatantly silenced, it gives me chills. Freedom of the press is quickly becoming whitewashing of the press, a propaganda machine for those who would rather apologize for America than defend her.
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The Muslims are planning their own rally on the Capitol steps, estimating a mere 50,000 to attend, but I already predict that the news stations and papers will fall all over themselves to present "balanced and tolerant" coverage of an event that should leave us quaking.
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We are poised to "tolerate" ourselves into oblivion. The new religion of the politically correct worships anything and everything but the God whose name is inscribed on our currency and the walls of congress. Tolerance has come to mean the embracing of that which not so long ago was decried as depravity. Dangerous. Evil. But that was back when America knew there was a right and wrong. Back when we at least claimed to be One Nation Under God.
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What makes this event even more chilling is that this convergence of over 2 million Americans had nothing to do with anyone's brand of religion. This was the grass-roots citizenry crying out against the destruction of their nation by its leaders. This was "We The People," the very individuals our constitutional government was designed to protect and honor and listen to.
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But in the interest of "tolerance", the government and its right arm, the Press, can no longer listen to We The People, because those same people will not tolerate what's going on.
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To refuse adequate coverage of this monumental event is the same as silencing freedom of the press.Those people had a right to be heard, had a right to be addressed by the man elected to sit in the White House. You can bet he'll be out there addressing the Muslims.
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And shouldn't that tell us all we need to know about where we're headed?

But they're just kids...

"A rash of burglaries is sweeping the city..."

"Latest crime wave involves gangs smashing car windows and stealing radios to sell at pawn shops..."

"A ninety-three-year-old man was mugged and beaten..."

What these disturbing headlines have in common, is that the perpetrators of these crimes are all under the age of eighteen.

Why does it matter? If an old man is beaten senseless, he is just as injured by a seventeen-year-old as he would be if the attacker was thirty-seven. Crime is crime. Evil is evil. And no one knows that better than career criminals who happen to have started early.

We are becoming a nation who is controlled by our children. In the very country that allows children to be slaughtered inside their mothers' wombs, we take a radically different approach the moment they are declared "alive." Now, we must worship them, cater to them, focus on them completely for the next eighteen years, or risk having them taken from us by an all-knowing and all-powerful government.

Your teenage daughter may attack you with a knife, shriek curses and foul names at you, run like a wild beast out of control...but if you lay a hand on her, you are a child abuser. A monster! After all she's a child.

Anytime someone wants more of your tax dollars, all they must do is put a pleading child on television, and you're a monster if you vote NO. "Do it for the children..." is the passionate plea. "They are our future." How original!

What about our present? Modern America has extended the idea of a responsibility-free childhood longer than at any other era in world history. At eighteen, kids are granted full adult status, which translated means "your parents can't do anything about it." Yet, few eighteen-year-olds are equipped to live independently in this complicated society we've created.

The reason they are ill-equipped is that they have learned that they exist to be worshipped by adults, entertained, their self-images to be airbrushed and babied by all manner of expensive curriculum, toys, and programs. Who would want to grow up and leave these posh conditions?

We are a nation being tyrannized by its own offspring. Kids without a conscience can steal, kill, and destroy and nothing much happens to them. The juvenile system is the equivelent of a useless "time-out." You think they don't know that? Let Dad take a belt to Junior Delinquent and it's Dad who faces jail time. Let the courts crack down on Katie Killer, and the bleeding hearts (who most likely have not raised children!) come out of the woodwork, shouting in outrage: "We must protect children."

I am seeing this situation rise at an alarming rate in people I know. Good parents, whose own children are taking over and they don't know what to do about it. There is no good recourse for parents who've done their best, but their kids caught on early. Scream "child abuse," and it's strict Mom and Dad who are caught in the net while Junior heads out to hang with his buddies, smoke a little weed, pop a few pills, smash a few windows. Ha-ha, good times. He's just being a kid...

What will it take for America to wake up? The same nation who would kill that child moments before his birth, now undermines his character development for the next eighteen years--and blames the outcome on lack of funding.

Until we start treating our children as valuable human beings with a conscience, and holding them fully accountable for their actions, we face a future of anarchy. If the parents can't or won't do it, our legal system must. It won't get better on its own; evil never does.

Legacy of 9/11

Americans can never erase from our minds the horrible images burned there 8 years ago. Flaming bodies plunging to their deaths. Mighty airliners headed straight into the Twin Towers. Shock and disbelief as we heard of yet another crash. And then another.

And for days afterward, America was spiritual. Americans were nicer. Calling upon God was the popular topic of the day. We'd been faced with our own mortality and it humbled us. For a time.

But no nation as deeply rooted in sin and selfishness as ours is can sustain a shock-induced revival; just as foxhole converstions rarely last. If anything, the events of that September morning did serve to awaken some Christians to the inevitibility of America's downfall. Many of us are not surprised at the economic collapse hovering above us, or the moral decay eroding us from within.

The solution is the same as it's been for thousands of years, yet God's own people refuse to heed it:

"If My people, which are called by My Name, will humble themselves and pray, and seek My face....THEN, will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sins, and will heal their land."

How many more 9/11's will it take before God's own people get the message?

Inspiration

This is my new lighted picture over my work station. Isn't it gorgeous? Scenes like this reach out and pull me right into the place until I can almost smell the spruce and pine, feel the snow-chilled wind whip across my face, and hear the echos bounce from ten rocky peaks.

Beaches do it for me too, but mountains...I don't know, there's something about them. Nature in all its wild beauty reminds me how much bigger the universe is than whatever problem I might be fussing about. Its vastness, untamed, helps me keep life in perspective. "What is man that Thou takes notice of him?"

So I sit at my computer and lift my eyes every so often, breathe in the pine-laden air and have an instant vacation. Colors look more vivid, the senses more alive, and I can return to my work in progress with more vigor.

What inspires you? What mini-vacations do you give yourself to keep recharged?

Which Way Are We Headed?

Does anyone else feel it? Maybe it's me. Maybe aging does this to everyone, but I don't think that's entirely it. For the past couple of years, I have watched our world, our culture, the status quo careening sideways at an alarming rate. The history of the world is littered with crises: wars, natural disasters, acts of terrorism, famine, moral decay...But never before have we slipped from such a lofty position.

This is not a tirade against the younger generation nor a moral soapbox from which to condemn everything I find uncomfortable. Never in my life have I been so personally comfortable. It would be easy to turn my head, close my ears, and refuse to acknowledge the haunting unease that is strengthening every day.

It's a sensation, intuitive, just a whisper, like an apparition glimpsed from the corner of your eye. You try to focus on it, and it's gone. But you know it was there. You're affected by it, even though you don't understand what it is.

The battle between the idea of moral absolutes and the popular mindset is heating up. All over the world, the suffering of mankind is escalating, much of it due to man's own evil; yet, no one refers to evil anymore. The idea of absolute right and wrong is no longer acceptable. Instead, we talk about "healthy choices," "affirming self image," "lifestyle alternatives," and "disease." None of those labels carries with it any personal judgement.

Africa is being decimated by AIDS, overwhelmingly due to the immoral lifestyle choices of the people. Yet, to hear the popular media address it, you would think it was a plague similar to polio. No one but the handful of missionaries working in the field ever speaks the truth. South American countries are being overrun by terrorists and ruling entities who seem to have no conscience. Yet, our own government--the one nation under God--plays word games and elevates dictators to the position of benevolent rulers, supporting their tyranny for political gain.

Much has been said and written about the United States's rapid decline, yet few Americans truly believe they are part of the problem. "Just as long as I'm comfortable," is the hymn sung by most, even those professing to be followers of Christ. "Don't make anyone feel bad about themselves," has become the accepted mantra of well-meaning people. But how wrong that is.

Until we see ourselves the way God sees us, until we feel terrible about our contribution to moral decay, until each of us cleans up our own act in whatever little ways we can, the slope into destruction only gets slicker.

We view our own choices as private, as though we alone have the right to define evil for ourselves. We call good what God calls abhorrent. We value what God detests. We rewrite history to exclude any intervention from Heaven. Yet, when the ship begins to sink, we all cry out to God to save us, as though the God we've renamed and redefined to suit ourselves has no choice but to obey our every wish.

The world is pushing for global unity, global ideology, global everything to the extent that soon the idea of nationalism will be viewed as suspect. The Land of the Free, the once-honorable champion of liberty, has abused the concept of liberty to the extent that we will soon be slaves once more. Those crying out to stop this headlong race to self-destruction are universally booed, labeled "phobic," and accused of "hate-mongering."

It's happened before. All throughout history, those who stood for truth and righteousness were mocked and belittled, eventually silenced. But never before has the descent into darkness originated from the brightest era of light the world has ever experienced.

We could have it all. It's right in front of us: the technology, the experience, the science, the convenience to allow us to devote ourselves to righteous causes, lifestyles of honor and purity, clear-headed decisions based on dignity, fairness, and an undisputed standard of right and wrong.

But we're going to miss it. While plunging headlong into the chaotic mess that will eventually destroy us, we think we're becoming more enlightened. We won't realize how foolish we were until it's too late.

And I'm afraid, for much of the world, it's already too late.
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A Prayer for the School Year

As kids head back to school this week, there are a few things that we can all agree on as we pray for them and their year, no matter what schooling situation they may be a part of. Having had a child in almost all of these at one point, I'm well aware of the pitfalls and potential for Satan's snares inherent in each.

For the public school students:

Lord, give them strength and nobility of character to stand alone, no matter what friends, teachers, or the cool kids say or do. Let the Scripture that's been planted in their hearts rise to the surface with every challenge. Let your truth come from their mouths as they answer their tempters, and with every true word spoken, let their hearts grow stronger. Allow them to see their school as a mission field, filled with hurting people who long for truth and not be swayed by the popular opinion of the day.


For the Christian school student:

Father, even within the supposedly Christ-centered hallways, darkness lurks and temptation waits, hiding in the hearts of those who are not there to learn truth, but to disrupt. Protect our children from themselves, and the tendency to become careless or shallow in their faith, assuming that anything they hear or do must be Christian, since that's the name of the school. Let them see clearly the difference between those professing the Name, and those with You entrenched deeply in their hearts. Let this time of growth and discovery prepare them with the ability from now on to tell the sheep from the goats and to never be led astray by false prophets.

For the homeschooled student:

As hard as we try, Lord, no parent can train the sin nature out of a child. They are each your unique creations with a free will. Guard the homeschooled child from puffed-up pride and self-centerdness. Rebuke the tendency to assume spiritual superiority. Just because they can quote whole chapters of your word doesn't meant their hearts are any more tender than the most hardened criminal. Let them see the struggle others must face and develop compassion for the lost and hurting who they may not see as often as they would in another mode of schooling. Help them to recognize that their relationship with You is not based on Mom's relationship with you and that God holds each one accountable for what he's been given.


For the college student:
Lord, this is a tough time in the life of any kid. The buffet of the world's choices is spread before them, tempting, inviting them to just "have a taste." Deepen their convictions now, Lord. Strengthen their minds that they can make the standards they were raised with their own. Bind the spirit of confusion that will try to muddle Your clear mandates and let them think clearly and rightly and refuse to be sidetracked. Give them a vision for their future, for a path You've created for them. One that will excite and motivate them to finish the race. Deliver them back to us whole, stronger and wiser, ready to use all they've been given to impact their world.


We pray that this school year will produce mighty warriors for God's kingdom from every school in the nation and from every family. Amen.