freedom impact

I am thrilled to be in Washington D.C. for the 4th of July weekend! What better place to be?! Independence Day finds me reflecting deeply on the course of our nation - where we are, where we have been and where I wish we were.

My prayer is from one of our finest patriotic songs, "America, America, may God thy gold refine, till all success be nobleness and every gain divine! [...] God shed His grace on thee, till selfish gain no longer stain the banner of the free!" And every year, I realize a little more why we so desperately need God's grace and mercy.

I recently had the privilege of hearing a lecture by former Attorney General John Ashcroft. He implored us to ask in every decision we face - what is the freedom impact? What brings the most freedom will be the right answer for government. The bigger government grows, the more it works its way into the private lives of citizens, the more it regulates tolerance and desensitizes conscience, the more it taxes us and pushes us into debt - the less freedom we have.

Freedom is two-pronged here - we need government for defense and order, and we need Jesus - because where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.

So that's what I'm praying now - that brave, principled men and women will accomplish great things in bringing reform to our government, and that God would bring an awakening to this country so that we would live by His grace, in His will, with resensitized consciences, in His power, for His glory.

O thus be it ever when freemen shall stand

Between their loved homes and the war's desolation

Blessed with victory and peace, may the heav'n rescued land

Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation!

Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,

And this be our motto, "In God is our trust!"

And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave

O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!