Just some early morning thoughts from me to you…
“Only two defining forces have ever offered to die for you, Jesus Christ, and the American soldier. One died for your soul; the other for your freedom.”
Author Unknown“…From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked.”
Luke 12: 48b (NIV)‘For none of us lives for ourselves alone, and none of us dies for ourselves alone.”
Romans 14: 7 (NIV)
Memorial Day. There seemed to be more flags being flown in the past on this day, and other national holidays. But not today.
I wonder how it begins. Indifference, that is. Maybe we begin to learn it as children. I wonder how we could recognize its stealthy approach.
Indifference—the entry point on the slippery slope causing us to set aside personal and moral responsibility toward others, this nation, and the One who is overall.
Indifference is the enemy of duty—a duty divinely set within us to be all we are created to be.
Because when indifference creeps into the day-to-day life of a parent— children learn they are not valued. When it settles into the easy chairs of our marriage—couples grow cold and empty. When it is allowed to exist in a culture, some lives are valued less than others. When indifference infects the hearts of our young—they lose their sense of wonder and hope for becoming all they were created to be.
And when time passes, indifference causes us to forget those who stood in the gap for our freedom and all we should hold dear as a nation.
Days like today should move us to embrace our duty for each other, for our nation—by stepping up and embracing the duty which should always be the hallmark of the best of each citizen, and the best of this great nation.
Duty. As Jesus demonstrated in His ministry among us, and His journey to the cross. As the patriots we remember demonstrated standing in the gap for our freedom.
So, on this Memorial Day, I pray that we will never forget the lives of those who embraced their duty for the nation they loved, as they made the ultimate sacrifice so that we might live in freedom today.
Patriots, who often came back from their duty in pieces, boxes, on stretchers and crutches, forever scarred and crippled, and whose bodies now lie beneath row after row of white crosses in the sacred grounds of Arlington National Cemetery and in thousands of cemeteries across this country and world.
Patriots whose legacy of belief in our nation and in something better, in a hope for a brighter tomorrow for all citizens, must not end with them, but must live on in us and in the purpose of each day of our lives.
Each of us, and each passing generation, has the duty to not only remember, but to honor them by taking up the torch they carried, reminding the next generation of their sacrifice, embracing the vision and hope for our lives—for our children and grandchildren—which they carried and kept burning brightly with the blood of their courage and very lives.
And each generation also has the duty to do all they can to assure that this torch of liberty burns brightly for all of our citizens. Every day.
Indifference is never an option. Duty is the only option. Every day.
As you depart the main exhibit of the National Holocaust Museum, in our Nation’s capital, these words by Pastor Martin Niemoeller, which are etched on the wall, become forever etched in your heart:
“In Germany, the Nazis came for the Communists, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn’t speak up because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me, and by that time there was no one left to speak.”
Never again you say. We know better, don’t we.
In a word—Duty.
Memorial Day reminds us there is never a time for indifference.
Memorial Day is a reminder of our call to duty. Every day.
A time to respect, remember, to never forget those who have stood in the gap for us and made the ultimate sacrifice so we can stand here in freedom today—as we can remember and honor them. Every day.
And to lift all to the promise of America, for which they gave that ultimate sacrifice. Every day.
And in their memory and honor, it is a time for more American heroes to step forward once again, to reach heavenward, and with outstretched fingers—to touch the face of God.
We have done it before as a nation; surely, we can do it again. Every day.
As we do, may God continue to bless The United States of America.
In His Name—Scott
Enjoy this video of “God Bless the USA” performed by Lee Greenwood and members of the USAF choir.
