God And Nation

One thing I’ve heard in conservative circles lately is that God has forsaken America and that the passage of the health care bill is proof of that.  I am sure that many conservatives were praying to God during the whole process that this bill would not pass and that He would do something about it.  And I’m sure that these same conservatives are angry at God for not stopping it.  The thing is, I don’t believe that God has forsaken the United States of America because I don’t think he was ever really for it to begin with.  At least, not with the United States in the same manner that we might be for our favorite sports team.

You see, God is on His own side.  This is one of those things that many Christians get wrong on so many levels.  My wife once commented about God being on her side and I told her that He is not on anybody’s side; we have to be on His side or our own side.  I guess that’s the attitude I see when people state that God has forsaken America and it is one of pride, the blackest of all sins.

Now, I know people will argue that our prosperity and our enlightened form of government as laid out by the Constitution is all proof of God being on our side.  The trouble with that argument is that this nation was never consecrated before God, otherwise it would have been written into the Constitution.  While many of our founding fathers were reverent toward God and they certainly lifted up the Constitution in prayer, they left Him out of the language of that document.

Another thing is that God has nothing to do with whether or not a civilization rises and falls, in most cases.  Sure, He does allow civilizations to rise and fall and it is within His power to destroy and create, most of the great civilizations in human history have been pagan and irreverent toward God.  In a few cases, they were downright hostile toward Him and His Will.  And remember, God even called Nebuchadnezzar, a pagan dictator of the ancient city of Babylon, “His servant.”   While the context of this was to illustrate the judgment He was bringing to Israel through the prophet Jeremiah, it is clear that God has His own agenda, regardless of what we do.

The fact is, God wasn’t necessarily for the United States anymore than He was for Rome, Babylon, Greece, China, Egypt, or any other nation that He didn’t directly create (and there was only one that I know of).  The United States will rise and fall on it’s own, and while God may have been there at it’s beginning and may be a part of it’s fall, I don’t believe that He was directly involved any more than the rise and fall of all the great civilizations before us.

I actually take this idea to heart because I’ve read up on what happens to the nation that He creates and forsakes Him and it ended badly.  While those chosen people are still around today, they never regained any of their former glory and to this day they are living dependent on other nations.  While I don’t hold any of that against them, I recognize what happens when God Himself pays special attention to you and frankly, it’s a little scary.

The truth is, all God asks of us is that we obey His Will, regardless of what happens around us.  I wish I could provide some comfort in what is happening to our nation, but I can’t.  The truth is, we are all from dust and in a short time we return to dust.  Whatever the circumstances of our existence happen to be, be it in a savage wasteland or a prosperous civilization, our calling is to obey His Will and acknowledge His Word.

Everything else in life is, well, just details we have usually have to sort out ourselves.