After yesterday’s writing, I was thinking about the big battle in our country. The division we face in our country is really no different from the battle each of us face within ourselves. Don’t we all battle whether to serve others or expect to be served? Don’t we all battle whether we will look out for our own rights versus the rights of someone else that may interfere with my own? Isn’t it common for us as individuals to be torn between what is best for me and what is best for the many around me? As President Kennedy put it, “Ask not what your country can do for you; but ask what you can do for your country.”

When over 50% of the country is saying, “Ask what your country is going to do for you,” therein lies the rub. When I live like the world revolves around me, like everyone else owes me something; I become miserable and create more misery for those around me.

So, my theory is, what we are seeing on a national level is simply what I face every day as an individual. Will I live to please and make sure # 1 is taken care of or will I live to serve and make the world a better place.

We have too many people who have chosen to not only look out for # 1 but are demanding the government make that happen. Too many who feel somehow they are owed something. The current administration basically got elected by giving those people what they demand. “Obama is buying me a cell phone!”

As large groups of people are demanding “Their rights,” rights that are not guaranteed in the constitution and demanding the government be their sugar daddy, we create the mess our country is experiencing now.

Only a return to the morality of our fore fathers can turn us back. I believe some of those values are as follows and are based on Scripture.

1.  We answer to a higher authority, namely God.
2. If a person is able and won’t work they don’t eat there are no free rides.
3. We have equal opportunities but not equal outcomes. Some through giftedness; discipline and hard work will achieve more than others. Some win; others are content to get by. We choose!
4. Benevolence is strictly monitored and only given to those in real need, widows, orphans and the handicapped.
5. The government’s primary role is to protect our freedoms, to punish wrong doers and keep order so we may pursue our right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
6. The practice of religion is to be protected with no fear of the state stepping in to run those organizations or make it difficult for them to practice their faith.
7. Those faith organizations were to largely take care of each other and the benevolent needs of the community.
8. We are to be one nation under God, from many various backgrounds, one United States of America.

As our government has drifted from its intended purpose and has become the great Santa Claus, our human nature and greed has captured too many of us who have our hands out asking, “What have you done for me lately?” Personal responsibility for myself, my family, my community and our country is slipping away from us as we crumble from within like ancient Rome!

I’d like to say blessings, but this is more sobering. God, bring us back to our roots!

Scott