Confirm Thy Soul

Confirm Thy Soul

By Teri Ong

The brilliance of America’s founders was evidenced by their recognition of the fact that human rights cannot be given by one group of humans to another group of humans. If our rights emanate from human beings, human beings can even more easily take them away. It has well been said, “A government big enough to give you everything you want is big enough to take everything that you have.” On the other hand, rights based on our position “under God,” rights based on God’s unchanging character and our creation in His image, are as unchanging as He is. But to maintain a correct relationship with Him means that ultimately our souls must be subject to God. God is the one who puts earthly powers in their places; He is the one who likewise keeps them in their places. God’s ideal is that governments are not to be a terror to good, but only to evil. If our government is becoming a threat to the good, it is only because God is letting it be so as a reproof to our foolishness and pride. (Romans 13) All humans, but especially Americans, have many choices to make in a day. Why do I say, “especially Americans?” Because we have been a free society for more than two centuries, and freedom is essentially the ability to choose between life options. The overarching choice we must make is whether we will be subject to the good God who has graciously given us certain inalienable rights, or if we will be enslaved by the law of capricious human feelings. Yale professor David Gelernter, astutely pointed out in his article “What Is the American Creed?” (Wall Street Journal, A11, July 2, 2012), “Modern America is a world where a future Supreme Court justice, Sonia Sotomayor, can say publicly in 2001, ‘I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion [on the bench] than a white male who hasn’t lived that life.’ Once a justice has intuited, by dint of sheer racial brilliance, which party to a lawsuit is more simpatico and deserving, what then? Invite him to lunch? Friend him on Facebook? This is not justice as America knows it.” We must acknowledge that even a “law unto himself” is still servant to someone– even if it is his own whims and gut feelings. Dickens’ well-known character Ebenezer Scrooge, when first confronted by the ghost of his business partner, Jacob Marley, said that the apparition he was seeing was probably due to bad digestion, a bit of sour cheese, or as he said, “There’s more of gravy than of the grave in you.” Is that really what we believe is the best path for American society? Gelernter brilliantly sums up his article, “The president has revealed no sense of America’s mission to move constantly forward ‘with malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right.’ Lincoln’s sublime biblical English uses the parallel stanzas of ancient Hebrew poetry. That is who we are: a biblical republic, striving to live up to its creed. The dominion of ignorance will pass away like smoke and we will know and be ourselves again the moment we choose to be. Why not now?” I agree. God, take the scales from our collective eyes and let us see ourselves as You see us. Grant us repentance from our willful suppression of Your truth and from the folly of our selfish pride. Make us anew Your “city on a hill” giving the light of the Gospel of redemption in Jesus to the world. Psalm 106 God of eternal love, How fickle are our ways! And yet how oft did Israel prove The constancy of grace! They saw great wonders wrought, And then God’s praises sang; But soon those works of power forgot, And cried with murmuring tongue. How they believe His word While rocks with rivers flow! But soon their lusts provoke the Lord To frown and bring them low. Yet when they mourn their faults, He listens to their prayer, And moved with all the Father’s thoughts, Extends again His care. So let us bless the Lord, For all his faithful ways To those who keep His holy Word And give Him all their praise. Metrical version by Isaac Watts (1674-1748)

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