The government,” he told me one night, “is there to act as a safety net, not a candy machine.
Some people thinks that I’m the Antichrist, which would be a really good disguise for the Antichrist. You’d never see a pudgy, out-of-shape guy, 5 o’clock in the afternoon, being the Antichrist, would you?
People aren’t happy unless they buy stuff, and that’s because we have become this industrialized nation.
What’s amazing to me? General Electric has a bigger budget for – special interest budget than all of the oil companies combined, and yet nobody says anything.
If we just stop producing stuff, if we stop being so capitalist, we stop taking resources from other third world countries, we’ll be happy.
I contend that the reason why America is not as happy as it was in 1950 or 1920 or whenever, 100 years ago, is because our priorities are wrong, but it has nothing to do with exploiting the planet and has everything to do with losing faith in God.
Maybe he thought I would run then. Maybe he thought I would be done. But I had been hurt before. I think he underestimated my ability to pick myself up and keep going. Done? Far from it.
Well,” Nicholas said seriously, “I think that all good gifts come ultimately from God. It wouldn’t do for the messenger to take credit for his master’s work.
The entirety of his life to this point had merely been to prepare him for what he was to do next: bring hope to the hopeless and joy to the joyless. He would serve mankind by reminding them every year that a King had been born who had died for thier sins.
Because even though I was afraid to admit I, I felt like a door had been cracked in my soul. It was a tiny opening, to be sure, but there was the hint of something new in the air, something unexpected.
Once a week, beginning at sunset on Friday and until sunset on Saturday, the family had to pause. A Jewish merchant had explained the Sabbath to Agios already, back in Egypt. No devout Hebrew could work or travel on that day. If they were near a temple, the family went there. If no temple was available, they prayed where they were. When.
Apathy and arrogance: These are the real culprits that affect us all to one degree or another.
United States and abroad reject and condemn violent jihad. But it doesn’t follow.
To keep a man a slave you do much the same as the cruel circus masters did to the elephant around the turn of last century. Clamp heavy chains around their legs and stake them to the ground. Then beat and terrorize them. After a while you no longer even have to stake the chain; the elephant gives up and just the mere rattle of the chain convinces the elephant there is no hope, so they give up and do whatever it is the circus requires.
Our forbears came to these shores not for free stuff, but for freedom. The chance to make their own way, create a different life. They came here because they knew that God made them free to make their own way in life, take the risk, do their best and take responsibility for their own lives. They came here because they wanted to serve Him in the way they believed, not as they were told.
We have only one life. We may waste it, or we may use it to learn of God and what God wants for us. And we all make mistakes. Only one life.
Trust me: if you just pick up the really obvious bread crumbs, you will find that you have more than enough to find your path. It will transform your life. God isn’t trying to hide anything from you. He’s not being coy or playing games for His own amusement. He’s trying hard to show you the way.
It is no longer enough to just be a good person. We must work to be the next Abraham Lincoln or Martin Luther King. It is noble to strive to be the size of the bronze giant they dedicated this morning in the building behind me. Fredrick Douglas’ time was in the 1800; King’s time has passed. This is our time. This is the next long march toward civil rights and we shall overcome.
Americans are still a fair and just people. They know the difference between racism and race-baiting, between violence and accusations of violence, between hatred and patriotism. Let them weigh the evidence for as long as they need, because when the verdict comes down, we will once again be on the right side.
The result of preventing failure in a country rooted in freedom is a country that is no longer rooted in logic.
Only those afraid of the truth seek to silence debate, intimidate those with whom they disagree, or slander their ideological counterparts.