I can’t believe it’s already March. It’s nice to finally see the sun out again. I’m so sick of winter weather. I have a statistics exam tomorrow and will begin spring break next week. I know it’s quite early but I’m relieved to have a break as this has been my busiest semester since I began college. I’ll probably be spending my time catching up on studying and seeing people I haven’t talked to in awhile.
Abraham’s latest post articulated a mindset that I’ve heard all my life. My elders from my parents, pastors, and teachers always told us kids how bad the world was getting. I remember being told how this country would probably collapse by the time I entered adulthood if the rapture hadn’t occured by then. Really encouraging stuff for a teenager who hadn’t really begun her life yet to hear.
Even though I’m a nursing major now I still have a love for history. Because of this, it really bothers me when so many people act like the United States was this perfect godly nation until the 1960s. Anyone who’s paid attention in a history class should know better. People talk about how God desperately needs to judge this nation because of homosexuality, feminism, other religions, and liberals. Yet somehow God seemed perfectly okay with including slavery in a “Christian” constitution, child labor, segregation, legally sactioned spousal abuse, genocide and forced removal of Native Americans from their land, etc. Don’t get me wrong, I love this country and wouldn’t want to live anywhere else but to pretend that we were a perfect country always on the right path until the various cultural revolutions of the 1960s is simply naive and false. Do you think God was approving of any of that stuff that I listed above that went on in this country? A quote I found on another blog put it quite well ,” If God was going to judge this country, America would have been burnt to a crisp a long time ago.”
God’s law was not meant to be used selectively. Jesus pointed out that even being angry was equvialent to murder. The point is if we use God’s law to condemn others we’ll find ourselves condemned as well. Heck the law calls me unclean just for having a menstrual cycle. This was to show that our own efforts could never get anyone to earn favor with God. I have never commited actual murder yet by Jesus’ definition I’m a serial killer.
I’m not using this to excuse bad or unhealthy behavior. There is nothing wrong with trying to have morals and be responsible. However, I know from experience that using that to gain God’s favor doesn’t work. To be honest, do any of us really want to get what we do deserve? Reading Jesus’ teaching for what they really are make me so thankful that I won’t get what I deserve. If God is going to judge any of us, we’re all going to be burnt to a crisp. If people really want to change this country for the better, it’s time to stop looking at a revision of history that never existed and let everyone know that God loves them unconditionally and gave His life for them, no strings attached.
