God Bless America
The price that good people pay for doing the right and necessary things and the rewards received (if any) rarely balance out. This applies equally to the secular and sacred faces of our lives. With either faith or honor lighting our path, somebody will eventually receive just rewards. However, when we can successfully blend honor with faith, we can begin to realize; 1) our place in God’s master plan, and 2) the complete definition of grace, along with the pinnacle value of rewards. Until that time we are operating under our own or someone else’s rules, where the price paid may be everything we have but the reward received has long term meaning and value only to others. This does not diminish the sacrificial hero in any way, but it does cast a frowning light over beneficiaries who’ve forgotten the meaning behind a very specific holiday celebration. Millions of Americans have offered their lives, for us to enjoy the privileges taken for granted today.
On this (Memorial) holiday, we should think deeply about the price paid by some, for the freedoms of others. In a very human way, Memorial Day is like a secular Easter. Our brave, sacrificial soldiers, made a choice, to pay the price of our freedom for us. To a Christian, this has a very familiar ring to it. John 15:13, “Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends“. For soldiers this is love of his or her nation, but for the Christian soldier, it is for both love of God and for the one “nation, under God (1954-present) indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.” For those of you who believe that our nation’s courts had gone spiritually blind, the words “under God” were added to the U.S. Pledge of Allegiance in 1954 and were almost immediately challenged, by citizens. exercising those “freedoms” . Fortunately, God’s merits, were upheld on March 11, 2010, in the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and again on November 12, 2010, when in a unanimous decision, the US Court of Appeals for the First Circuit in Boston affirmed a ruling made by a New Hampshire lower federal court, which had found that the pledge’s reference to “under God,” doesn’t violate any civil rights. Yes God does and should hold the most prominent place in our daily lives and does calls upon his children to wage war against evil. On this day, once each year, we honor those men and women who pledged allegiance to this nation under God and then payed the ultimate price for their allegiance. God bless America and her lost and injured soldiers.
JC Calkins with COMMON SENSE 4 UNCOMMON PEOPLE
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