God & Country

I love God.

I love my country.

That being said, I prefer to live my life quietly. I wear neither my religion nor my patriotism on my sleeve.

I pray for myself and my fellow man. I participate in the events of a local church and attend services regularly.

I fly the flag of the United States of America on a staff at my house. I vote when called upon to do so. I rail against the tendencies of my government to interfere in the aspects of my life where I feel it has no place.

Normally I don’t say much to anyone about either of these particular aspects of my life as I find them both to be quite polarizing for most people. However, events of this past week have had many of the friends in my social media circle screaming about both God and government to the point that I can no longer deny my own strong feelings.

Many are saying the shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary happened because our government has kicked God out of our schools. Really? I think that might be crediting our government with more power than it really has. God is in our schools. God is everywhere we are. Contrary to popular belief, God is all powerful, not the US government. If the parents of the children attending our schools have done their jobs and taught their children to love God, then God is with them everywhere they go.

As far as our government allowing or not allowing God in our schools? What does that mean? He’s already there. What the complaint really is is the fact that our government doesn’t allow corporate prayer in our schools. I am OK with that. My son loves God and Jesus. His faith allows him to pray and live a joyful life. Someone else’s child may call God by another name such as Allah or Buddha and have a true love for their faith that gives their life peace and joy. Who am I and who is the US government to deny them that?

This country was based on freedoms and freedom of religion tops the list.

The problem with giving our government the ability to put God in our schools is: whose god should they put in? Yours? Mine? Theirs? Even those of us who call ourselves Christian can’t agree on God.

Some of us believe He is all things to all people and no matter what name He is called, He answers. Others, who also call themselves Christians by the way, believe God is . . . well, to be honest, I don’t know what they believe except that they seem to want us all to conform to their beliefs. In my mind this is not a reasonable expectation. If that’s the god they are wanting in the schools, even I, who call God, God, have a problem with that.

Do I believe God was in Sandy Hook Elementary last week? Yes. I do. My God was there. Weeping at the senseless tragedy of it all. Knowing it was going to happen before the event occurred. Knowing He was going to be called upon to pick up the pieces. Knowing, even as He did in the beginning, the free will He had given His people was going to break His heart. He was there to gather all those souls to Him and take them home.

Was your god there? If not, why not? Because the all-powerful United States government told him to stay away? Do you even know how ridiculous that sounds?