Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord,
    the people he chose for his inheritance.

• Psalm 33:12

if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land.

• 2 Chronicles 7:14

Righteousness exalts a nation,
    but sin condemns any people.

• Proverbs 14:34

The 250^th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence has been in the rearview mirror for a month.  And I wonder where it went or if it happened.

There were the “A” listers of Hollywood that refused to participate because they disagreed with the serving president’s policies.

There was the World Cup which had games each day of the 4^th of July weekend.  And thus, sports people hardly noticed.

And life went along as usual, but I presently live in Pennsylvania.  We had the usual fireworks, but we have them every summer, not always on the 4^th of July, but then the weather cooperated this year.

But I was in Tennessee in early May.  They already had double banners on every light pole in town.  The church was already making announcements about who would be performing where, and there was a buzz around town.

I bought a Hawaiian shirt decorated in American flags and I wore it often throughout late June and all of July.  I got compliments everywhere I went.  But some people complimented me, and then were afraid of what others might say.

The following Irish Rovers hit, The Orange and the Green is sung to the tune of The Wearing of the Green.  It talks about a son of an Irish couple, but the father was Orange (Protestant) and the mother was Green (Catholic).  The song was a fun take on a serious problem in those days in Northern Ireland.  There was an awful color problem of the Orange and the Green.  And it reminds me of what we have now, but do we really have an awful color problem of the Red States and the Blue States?  They yell from both sides, but do they communicate?

Will we get to the point that whether or not one extreme seceded from the other, will we have strained relationships due to political leanings?  When we only yell and never listen to the other side, can we exist as a nation?  And to those power brokers who are pulling the strings, what is their aim when the entire nation falls into chaos? And sadly, the real red/blue splits are between city folk and country folk. It is just the big cities in the North tend to turn the state blue. And I still remember when both major parties in the USA were conservative. But one was nearly bankrupt in 1968 and as they started recovering financially has steadily leaned the other way ever since. Actually, both of them have leaned in that direction, just one more than the other.

We still have soldiers that swear an oath to protect the Constitution while we have government officials that either want to destroy the constitution or circumvent it.

The answer lies in the Scriptures above.  We have turned our backs on God.  Has God used the United States of America for His own purposes, like He did the Assyrians, the Babylonians, the Medes and Persians, and the Romans?  Are we the next superpower to collapse?

The book of Jonah is telling.  Jonah preached to them, reluctantly.  And for a time, they repented.  If we will become the power we once were, it will only happen with God moving the anger of the red and blue aside and replacing it with love for all mankind.

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory.