Life is full of choices. Even from the beginning, God respected humanity's sovereignty and gave us the power to make our own choices. From when we awake in the morning, to the clothes we wear to the vocations we follow, it is all dictated by our choices predicated on our opportunities, gifts and faith in ourselves and others. This week we will once again celebrate the founding of our country- a time when the English Citizen who felt put upon by their King stood up and asserted that their rights didn’t come from him or from parliament, but were endowed upon them by God. Certain rights and freedoms were inherited from our creator. This of course didn’t go over well and nine years of war and civil strife between neighbors occurred until the signing of the Treaty of Paris in 1783.

Even after it was signed there was still conflict between the parent country and the fledgling country at least through the War of 1812, but free men stood their ground and from these early beginnings our great country was born. They made choices, sometimes unpopular and always risky to their property and families. How could they do this? What possessed them to risk everything?

I believe it all hinged on their faith in a God bigger than any King; a God that blessed them with this wonderful land and opportunity; a God that would provide for their path to victory based on the righteousness of their cause. Taxation without representation was wrong and they were willing to give everything to end it, based on faith in God and their righteous cause.
Rev. Max Lucado said, “If there are a thousand steps between us and God, he will take all but one. He will leave the final one for us. The choice is ours.” I know in my own life I become so focused on making common sense decisions, that often I don’t even think about God and what he would want me to do with my choices and freedom. Yet, based on the odds of taking on the greatest military power in the world, many of our countrymen thought standing up to the British was quite mad and irresponsible. Maybe there is a lesson about the blessings of freedom in this history. Freedom is a blessing, but one that needs to be taken very seriously and one that isn’t based on military or political power as much as on God’s great blessing of this land and God’s people’s wisdom to recognize it each day. I hope we will not shirk our responsibility to recognize and take seriously the gifts of this country. How, by living our lives each day in a way that takes that step towards God and his wisdom and by to honoring the blessing we have been given us and so many before us have risked everything to drop in our laps.

Pastor Wayne