The other day my son took me on a ride through the Columbian Gorge. How green everything looked! God certainly must love that shade of green because the grasses, trees and bushes all carried the same shade. The Columbia River appeared the same shade of blue as the sky. It was a beautiful day.

My knee gives me a lot of trouble. There is a barricade making a safe walkway for people who wanted to take pictures of the view below us. We were high above the river and the view of trees and farmland   was one that folks wanted to take home with them. I wanted to go too, but I got stuck! I couldn’t get my bad leg over the barricade so there I stood with my good leg on one side and my bad leg on the other! I couldn’t go either way and my son (who told me to stay away from crossing the barricade) was taking pictures far away from me. From no where came a hand. “Here, let me help you,” said the voice behind the hand. She did and soon I was on the safe walkway!

After I had taken all the pictures I wanted of the view, I looked and saw my son was quite a distance from me. I thought if I just did something a bit different I could get back across the barricade so I tried. A man stood nearby watching me. He said, “You can make it! Come on, just a few more inches.” I listened and got myself over the barricade. I don’t think I would have made it without the cheerleader!

Our televisions, newspapers and internet give us pictures nearly every day of shootings, stabbings or car accidents where people are in real trouble and other people just stand there and don’t lift their finger to help them. I believe America is full of folks who do help even if it takes them money or physical cost to do so. Contrary to what our televisions, Newspapers or internet tells us, American people are good. Why don’t we hear more about the good things people do? I believe if we heard the good things that are happening in America, we wouldn’t be so despondent about what America has become. What do you think?

Our country is a mess! Our economy is bad, we need more jobs, our kids are not allowed to use the name of Jesus in school. They aren’t even taught history like we used to do. We don’t have Christmas or Easter vacations any more, just winter vacations and Spring breaks. We have murdered millions of babies and people just don’t care about what God says in his book anymore.

There is more but who is at fault? I think it is me and millions of folk just like me. We have long ago decided that we are happy and contented with our lives. We buy what we need and much more too. We vote and we go to church when the weather is good. We forget to pray but we accept God’s gifts just the same. We send our kids to school but we don’t pay any attention to what they are learning. We don’t even pay attention when the pastor says the Bible is wrong.

Some of this doesn’t fit me and some of it doesn’t fit you, but put them all together and somewhere or other we can put our name on one or two of these things. The question is, what do we do about them? The first thing is to remember that God is in control. What has he done in the past?  If we study in our Bibles we know he will destroy America if we don’t wake up. He has destroyed the children of Israel over and over again but he has saved them too if two or more prayed. What does that tell us? We need to pray!

Christianity started with only eleven men! These men, for the most part, were fishermen without much education but they followed Jesus. They walked all over the country and even decided that Gentiles, like us, were welcome too. Where are we now? In America we consist of the largest portion of people yet we too, have fallen into living our lives like there is no God. However, are there eleven people here  willing to stand for what is right and say “No” to what is wrong? I am sure there are thousands more than eleven!

Let us begin by following God. Admit we have been wrong and then turn to him in prayer asking him not to punish us like he has so often done to the children of Israel. Prayer is a powerful gift we have received and we should use it much more than we have. Then we should  talk to our families and friends telling them to also pray for our country.

We can change our country if only we turn our hearts and lives toward God. He is in control, much more than our Congress and President are, let’s not forget that!