GLANCING BEHIND, LOOKING AHEAD: Guest Post

In my January Newsletter, Floyd, from But by the grace of God...there go I  shared a powerful piece in my Featured Bloggers section and I wanted to share it here. Floyd's a great man of God and wonderful blogger. I encourage you to check out his writing.

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                            GLANCING BEHIND, LOOKING AHEAD

“Hey! I used to have a shirt like that!” He almost yelled to make sure he had everybody in our P.E. class’ attention. Then he bellowed the punch line, “Till my dad got a job!” He laughed. I didn’t laugh… As a hundred and twenty pound twelve year old freshman, the big senior wasn’t too threatened. I did make it a point to continue wearing that shirt until I outgrew it.

We didn’t have much at times when I was growing up. Two pairs of 501’s had to last the year, despite growing, rips, or tears. As I think back on the meager days and compare our society now and then, the difference is startling. My children, us, and all of society have so much more.

I listen to statistics of the poor and how they live and I’m grieved. I know what it’s like to get by with little… but that’s only part of the story. The statistics of what the statistically poor people have tell a different story. They have houses. They have cars. They have air conditioning. They have computers. They have cell phones.

Growing up in Arizona, it would have been nice to have central air conditioning when I was a kid… and we were considered middle class.

Glancing in the rearview mirror, I see that those material things were nice, but not coveted. We were taught by society, in majority, that while material things were okay, they weren’t what we longed or strived for. Honor and pride of a moral character mattered more than a car or air conditioner… even new clothes.

In that same hindsight I can see how the meanings of words have changed. Equal rights was and is a hot topic. We recognize that every living soul that is manifested in the form of a life here on earth is special and has rights and responsibilities that are inborn into all of us.

How the rights of a soul changed into the rights of a soul’s actions in the flesh is puzzling to say the least. We all have inborn weaknesses without exception, just different ones. How can an action in the flesh deserve the same recognition as the life itself?

If there are no absolutes, where does it stop? Does the pedophile deserve equal rights? How about the person that has unnatural affections for animals, what about their rights?

The nation that was rich beyond the rest of the world was rich due to the moral fabric that made up this great nation. That moral fabric is the Biblical, Judeo Christian values that the majority of this society embraced.

Now our society embraces things that can be touched. The greatest value in this land was on the inside of its people. It couldn’t be seen on the population, it wasn’t fancy or polished on the outside. It was measured on the inside and became evident by the selfless actions of real men and women on the outside. The fruit of who we are as a nation is evident by the things we cherish.

What is the origin of the wisdom that declares it can solve societies problems by passing more laws? The war on poverty has been estimated to have cost us fifteen trillion dollars so far, yet we have more “poor” people than ever before and more percentage wise relative to the population since the war began. Wisdom screams of the proof that this war is lost and a new one be waged.

The government that has failed at every endeavor except militarily, believe now it’s magically qualified to run medicine? And the masses have bit the shiny lure hook line and sinker with the same intelligence as the fish their eyes resemble.

I miss the old days… While we didn’t have much in the way of material things, we had light years more than society does now. It’s time to get back to basics. The basics of Biblical morals, and it starts with us; the Christians. We need to educate the willfully ignorant in love.

If you see me in my holy sweatshirt don’t be surprised. It’s just me reminding myself that what I and we as Christians have on the inside is the most valued thing in this cosmos… Greatness can’t be seen in material possessions. Greatness is He that lives within us.  That’s the Power that will take this nation back… Starting in 2013…

Happy New Year and God bless.