Fabulous, Friendly, Fun Filled, Freedom Filled Fourth

Fabulous, Friendly, Fun Filled, Freedom Filled Fourth

What a great weekend.  We live in a wonderful country in a wonderful world and God has given us many gifts.  This weekend we celebrated our nation’s independence from England by spending time with friends, new and old, by eating hamburgers and hotdogs and lots of other stuff.  If we were lucky we found some water in a lake or pool or ocean to get into to play and cool off.  Some of us watched the Fourth of July Concert from Washington D.C., some went into town to visit and dance and watch the fireworks and some watched the fireworks on Lake Jordan. 

Our nation was established on the premise that “all men (people) are created equal and that we are endowed by our creator with certain inalienable rights, among these are “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”  Our founders set the bar pretty high, and we have not always lived up to these noble standards that we have set for ourselves.  When the declaration of Independence was written, men meant men, and only white men at that.  Since that time we have recognized that this document includes women as well as men, and people of color as well as those who looked like the founders of our nation.  This kind of progress takes time, but as we change and adjust, the United States and the world become better places to live.

We have also become a nation where we recognize the founder’s intent to have a separation between “Church and State.”  One of the greatest gifts our founders gave us is the gift to worship God as we choose, or not to worship at all.  Whatever our religion or lack thereof, we are all Americans, dedicated to welcoming “you’re tired, your poor, your huddled masses, yearning to be free,” to quote the inscription on the Statue of Liberty that welcomed many of our ancestors to this country.  We are one of the most diverse nations in the world, religiously, ethnically and politically and the fact that we get along as well as we do is nothing less than a miracle and a gift from God.

On this very special day in our country, my prayer is that we look at the gifts God and the natural resources of this land have given us.  That we give thanks for these gifts, reflect on how we have used them wisely, as well as how we have squandered them, that we look at the ways over our history that we have “treated others as we would have others treat us, and at the ways we have not treated others as they have treated us.  This day of celebration and reflection is an opportunity for us to rejoice in the good we have done and to humble ourselves before God and ask forgiveness for the hurts we have caused others in this nation.

Living in a country of over 300,000,000 people is not easy and there are often difficult decisions to make.  Sometimes we make the right decision and sometimes we don’t.  Independence Day every year gives all of us the opportunity to celebrate, make amends and seek strength and guidance from God to be better next year than we were this past year.

Thanks be to God who gives us memory, reason and skill to serve our fellow human beings in God’s name.  As Jesus said, “the first and greatest commandment is to love the Lord your God with all your heart and mind and strength.  The second is like unto it; love your neighbor as yourself.”

Blessings and Peace,

Ben Alford