The other day while I was exercising I watched a History Channel report on the lives and times of our old American patriots. It covered the later times of the eighteenth century. It was my observation that they took altogether too much interest and even delight in exposing if not exploiting the darker side of these men.
While our nation’s fathers were truly ordinary men regarding their fleshly natures it must also be understood by their writings and actions that they were also men of understanding who had a far greater respect for the person and reality of God than our present leaders seem to have. They seem not to have taken sole trust in their personal abilities and strengths but trusted rather in the providence of God (“And for the support of this Declaration, with firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.”1) They openly appealed to the Providence of God.
How different it is today, when we as a people greatly trust in the assumed superiority of our education, strength and ideas. Little reference is made to God other than in an attempt to gain political acceptance or advantage with what seems to be an ever increasingly small group of folks who yet love and respect God above man. This does not bode well for us as a nation.
1Declaration of Independence. Emphasis added.
