Hi all,
As we come up on yet another great football super bowl here in the U.S., I think it makes for a rather good analogy regarding this issue of national pride. God's word says that pride goeth before a fall. We always think of that, I think, in terms of individualistic pride exampled by someone, but the Scriptures don't actually give any indication that such limiting is called for in understanding and applying the proverb.
Whatever team wins the super bowl, there will be cheering in the streets and guys, and likely some girls, too, walking around with puffed out chests about being the best, etc. etc. There's a great sense of pride for the city of the winning team and lots of high fives and such for a few weeks. People walking around with this, "Yea, we're the best!" attitude.
Don't get me wrong. That's not all bad and certainly understandable, but...
On a national level regarding a nation's status and position among all the other nearly 300 nations of the world, such pride can be damaging. It engenders in a lot of its citizenry, this 'we're better than you' attitude.
But, people are just babies who were born wherever their parents lived and, in the eyes of God, all stand on equal ground as to their worth and dignity. As an entire group, everyone wants the same things out of the time and effort that they spend living their lives, wherever they live. They want to feel secure in their homes. They love their children and want what's best for them. They want their families to be fed and taken care of.
Now, surely, some national governments and societies have done what we might consider a 'better' job in allowing their people to build such lives. The freedom to express and work for greater goals and more stuff to fill the days of their lives upon the earth. Some of these things can be good and some bad. But, I fear that when we start, as a nation, rallying around this, 'we're better than you' attitude and measuring our self-worth in all the freedoms and the stuff that one nation has that another nation doesn't, that we're not really living as God wants us to live. When we start denigrating those of another nation who are honestly, on an individual basis for the most part, just trying to find a way and place to live better lives, as murderers and rapists, and just, somehow, lesser human beings than we are because of our great place among the nations, I don't think that's a godly value.
Now, I fully understand that the world will be like this and I fully appreciate their feelings and why they feel as they do and operate and live as they do, but...
We here on Christian Forums, in the 'christian only' section of the boards shouldn't be living the same as them. We shouldn't see and measure the world and its people with the same measuring rod. America first is a great battle cry for the people of the world, but I think that the people of God should rather be holding up a banner that says, "God first!" We should be more realistic and discerning in our judgments. Rather than calling out other people that just aren't doing things the way that we think they should be done, shouldn't classify those people as murderers and rapists. We should understand that they're really just people like you and me. Some are 'good' people in the ultimate goal that they're striving for. Some are not so much. But I honestly believe that the second group is a very, very, very small percentage of the total.
I lived through the Mariel boat lift of Cuba. Everyone said that Cuba had opened up its prisons and was actually 'sending' their prisoners to our shores. That really wasn't a fair assessment of what was actually happening. For the most part the people who came to our shores as a part of that time were good, decent people who were merely fleeing a government that had let them down. Sure, there were some people among them who may have had other motives for coming here in that group. But, by and large, the tens of thousands of people who came here in that time, were honest, decent people who still today live in the South Florida area and have made it their home and become reasonably productive members of society.
Personally, I wish they'd take more effort to learn the language, but that really doesn't have anything to do with their honesty and decency of heart as human beings. Many of them likely just got caught up in the frenzy of those days that the U.S. was allowing this to happen and that they could escape what they saw as a worthless life living in Cuba. They likely hadn't even considered the full consequences of what it really meant to leave their homes and country. The need to assimilate and learn and new language. But for the most part they did and now their children are just like your children and my children. They are natural born citizens of the U.S. Going to school and learning skills and holding down jobs and paying taxes and all the rest that goes on with just being a citizen of a country.
Likewise, we will get through these days and securing our borders is an important task. Especially with all the dangers of letting terrorists and the like within our borders. But a wall?
What's a wall really going to do? People desperate to come here will find a way over, under or around any wall. Taller ladders, deeper holes or zip lines to zoom in, a wall isn't going to stop the perceived problem. Drug traffickers will find a way around it. I mean, you'll still have open border crossing at the various check points and they'll just get better and better at hiding the illegal contraband in vehicles. They can now make cocaine into just about anything. It's likely possible that, much like in the Goldfinger movie, they could make an entire car out of parts made or filled with cocaine. Gas tanks that hold 20 gallons of gas would actually be made to hold several pounds of cocaine and just 5 gallons of gas. Just enough to make a fifty mile trip across the border.
So after spending all these billions of dollars building this wall, we'd still have to pay for folks to patrol the wall to catch people who came up with some way around or under it. We'd still have to pay a large force of people to man the border crossing points and check the cars and baggage and goods that are flowing across. Trust me, drug traffickers will get their drugs across that border so long as there is a market in this country by which they can make lots and lots of money.
Just my two cents worth.
God bless you all,
In Christ, ted
