A Time for Courage

We live in a time when fear is prevalent. Fear of a virus, fear of being called a racist, fear that something written or said years ago will return to destroy, fear of taking a wrong turn in a city and ending up on the receiving end of mob violence. As chaos becomes increasingly the norm, many are wondering how we got here and what we can do to get things back to a semblance of normalcy. You may not like the answers.

We got ourselves here. All of us. We were so consumed with our day to day lives that we didn’t see the poisonous ideologies creeping into our institutions. In the space of 50 years we stood by while God was kicked out of public schools, public buildings and public events. We were mute when immorality was normalized and even celebrated. We were silent when government programs were created to take over responsibilities that should be done by churches, temples, mosques and charities. We accepted as necessary, and voted for, highly flawed people because they had the right party affiliation.

We gave up writing letters (not email, but pen-and-paper letters) to government officials expressing our concerns. We put perverts in pulpits and compromised holy doctrines. We spent money we did not have. We slandered the righteous as being out of touch. We confused equality of opportunity with equality of outcome. We said nothing when tens of millions of innocent lives were snuffed out. We turned to people and politicians to solve our mounting problems only to get angry when we saw after elections they’d played us for fools. Yes.

We’re all complicit to some extent. What can we do?

The enemies of our republic and constitution are inside the gates. Any solutions will be messy. But the first step is to understand our enemies have no power we don’t give them.

If someone demands you fire a good employee over a social media post on their own time, tell the accuser to pound sand. If someone demands you bow and pledge fealty to a slogan, tell them you bow only to God. If someone accuses a cop or anyone else of racism, tell them to wait until all evidence is heard before judging. In short, pay no heed to accusers. They do Satan’s work.

Get involved. Take back the reigns of your own destiny. Spend more time parenting, then marvel at improved child behavior. If you don’t like what’s taught in schools, homeschool. If your church preaches tolerance for sin, find another. If your job wears you down, get a new one. If you’re living beyond your means, stop before you’re enslaved. If you don’t like your representative at the school board, city council, legislature or congress, run against them.

Nothing will change until we change. Nothing will get better until we get better. The solutions are not easy. They’re hard. They require sacrifice and, most of all, they require courage.

“Courage is rightly considered the foremost of the virtues, for upon it all others depend.”

Winston Churchill