This is as political as I get

I’m going to jump on the bandwagon of politics. 

Just for a minute.  This is as political as I’ll get here.  

Bear with me.

America is a wonderful place to live, full of freedoms and riches beyond measure; but what frightens me is the direction we are headed.

Anyhow.

Tonight I was reading our nightly reading of Laura Ingalls Wilder’s ‘Little House Series’ to the children.  In book seven, Little Town on the Prairie, there is a chapter called ‘Fourth of July’.

When I was reading I had to stop for a moment to process what was written.

Laura hit the nail on the head.

(This excerpt comes after the reading of the Declaration of Independence in her small town the morning of the 4^th.)

No one cheered.  It was more like a moment to say, “Amen.” But no one knew what to do.

Then Pa began to sing. All at once everyone was singing:

“My country, ‘tis of thee,

Sweet land of liberty,

Of thee I sing…

“Long may our land be bright

With Freedom’s holy light

Protect us by Thy might,

Great God, our King!”

The crowd was scattering away then, but Laura stood stock still. Suddenly she had a completely new thought. The Declaration and the song came together in her mind, and she thought: God is America’s king.

She thought: Americans won’t obey any king on earth. Americans are free. That means they have to obey their own consciences. No king bosses Pa; he has to boss himself.  Why (she thought), when I am a little older, Pa and Ma will stop telling me what to do and there isn’t anyone else who has a right to give me orders.  I will have to make myself be good.

Her whole mind seemed to be lighted up by that thought.  This is what it means to be free. It means you have to be good. “Our father’s God, author of liberty—“The laws of Nature and of Nature’s God endow you with a right to life and liberty. Then you have to keep the laws of God, for God’s law is the only thing that gives you a right to be free.

Do we think of God as our King?  Whether we are American, whether we vote or how we vote; do we think of God as the author of our liberty and the One who gives us true freedom?  Most importantly, the freedom from our sin.  Or if this is being read in another country, where freedoms are not common like in America, know that through God, He can set you free. 

Through this election season, just pray for the leader that God, our King, chooses to put in. 

Even if it isn’t who you would have picked!!

I’ll get off my political soapbox now.