The Good Life: You Can’t have it Both Ways!

What is more important to you? Do you want the government to provide and guarantee security, money, health care, and every other blessing of what we call the Good Life? Or, do you want freedom, privacy, the right to make your own choices, and the chance to create the Good Life as you imagine it? Many people, especially younger people, want to have both—all the things they need and want and the privacy and unrestricted freedom to enjoy them. Guess what? You can’t have it both ways! Furthermore, the choice we make as citizens and voters may define the very future of the United States, a future that could conceivably be unlike anyone’s vision of the Good Life.

I know that many people in our country just want to live their lives and not be bothered by politics. They generally ignore the news, unless it’s celebrity gossip or just happens to involve them directly. I think Christians may often have the same attitude, even if their pastors try to motivate them to be compassionate and evangelistic. The United States is blessed, and only a few really extreme people think otherwise; even the poor here are rich compared to the poor just about everywhere else on earth! Can things be this good and still be at risk? Perhaps it’s how good things are that creates the risk of losing them. One aspect of a really good, comfortable life is complacency, but taking things for granted is the first stop toward losing them.

When things are pretty good, we can have either of two attitudes. On the one hand, we may worry about things that are not even close to life-threatening, things that, instead, are “life style” threatening. Will we get the latest tech toy—cell phone, game box, camera, laptop, or whatever? Can I be attractive enough for that special person to notice and like me? Will we be able to take that vacation to whatever paradise? Will our investments pay off? How can I fill my life with the greatest amount of pleasure? Yes, I know some folks worry about losing a job or even finding a good one. Others live on the edge of poverty, deal with disabilities or discrimination, face tragedies of various kinds, or have other problems beyond their preventing or control. At the same time, lots of people mess up their own lives by spending more than they earn, when they really do earn plenty, or by never learning how to get along with people so that divorce and alienation create pain and loneliness. At that, many of these problems pale when you compare them to the horrors of poverty, sickness, war, slavery, and oppression prevalent in much of the rest of the world. It is no wonder that some resent “ugly” Americans, who are so self-centered and self-absorbed that they have no understanding of real suffering or the struggle to survive.

The other problem is an assumption that all of our blessings are more or less permanent, safe, and unlikely to face serious threat of loss. In fact, to hear some of the rhetoric, one might think that Americans deserve the perks of their comparatively wealthy, materialistic lifestyles. For a short time, I think 9/11 showed us that our way of life is vulnerable. Many young people rose to the challenge, and they are fighting, today, for our way of life in places like Afghanistan and Iraq, seeking to bring freedom to those places. Not only did people come to see that enemies were sneaking into the country to do us harm, but others also recognized that unrestricted illegal immigration could dramatically change our way of life if it isn’t controlled.

Unfortunately, too few of us have spent enough time in other places or with people from them to see the differences between here and there, them and us. The Bible talks about the danger of taking our blessings for granted and of being thankless. What we do not appreciate, we risk losing, partly from failing to appreciate and protect our way of life, and partly from God simply allowing us to lose that which we assume we will always have. As I wrote earlier, complacency is dangerous; it neglects the work and sacrifice of those who came before us, and it ignores the diligence and effort required to preserve our freedom, opportunities, and prosperity.

“All that’s necessary for evil to win is for good men to do nothing.” What evil do we fact here? Some think of it in three parts—the world, the flesh, and the devil. Our own apathy is the flesh, radical ideology is the world, and that which opposes God is the devil. Therefore, you can boil this all down to three principles:

1) Americans must keep freedom alive or risk losing it. As someone has said, “Freedom isn’t free.” Many people gave their “lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor,” to give us this “land of the free and home of the brave.” Many others have worked hard to keep us free and safe, but we face threats both from outside and from within, as we always have. Today’s threats are radical Islamic fascism abroad and extreme “il-liberalism,” which is globalist, socialistic, anti-religious if not atheistic, and generally corrupt. I just wonder if this generation is as ready, as willing, or as able to keep us free and safe today.

2) People of faith must be good people who justify the privileges of religious liberty. Our founders believed that faith in God and religious morality to be critical to this nation’s survival. A significant majority of Americans believe in God and identify themselves as Christians of one sort or another. Unfortunately, many don’t act like it, given the degree of pornography, sexual promiscuity, divorce, and greed in particular. Furthermore, the radical antireligious forces are working hard to secularize the United States, to drive out Christianity, and to promote a diversity that they don’t truly respect. Radical Islamists fight to kill or convert the people of the world, and the United States is their primary target. I don’t belief faith, of the sort most of us would recognize, is their motivation; they oppose freedom in favor of severely restrictive “sharia” law that few Americans would enjoy. Religious freedom, as created in the United States, is unique, based on Christian ideas and motivations, and well on its way to be altered into something entirely different. The intent was not just to be free to practice religion but to create a nation in which the best aspects of Christianity flourished; the result has been a nation that not only enjoyed freedom and prosperity but also exported both.

3) Real Christians must love others to Christ. Believers have a God-given mission to win others to Christ. More importantly, if they truly “love their neighbors as themselves,” then they will want anyone and everyone they know and meet to discover the blessings of grace, mercy, and forgiveness in Jesus Christ, and the hope of eternal life. I believe it is the best kind of life possible, and I know it will make anyone’s life better. How could anyone doubt the importance of doing what is necessary to give that gift to everyone? Yet, somehow, not very many are doing it, effectively. I don’t believe we can preserve the best of what America is without changing the hearts of people. Some argue, without real evidence, that Christians want to create an American theocracy. Many do, in fact, strive to protect Christian values by trying to win politically. However, unless we win folks to “the Way, the Truth, and the Life,” we will never win at the ballot box. Citizens of the Kingdom make the best American citizens, and we must work to convert not just to Christianize.

My goal is to appeal to your most selfish interests. If you are someone who is serious about obeying God and serving your neighbors, then I hope you need little motivation to do as I advise or to pass along my suggestions. Many of us, however, speak of obedience, compassion, and patriotism but do little to support our words. I’m not being judgmental here; I just want you to ask yourself what you really want: Do you want the government to take care of you, give you everything you need and want, and do whatever necessary to keep you safe and secure, and are you willing to trust it and the people who run it to run your life, too? Or, do you want to be free to make a life for yourself, be able to work hard to create the best life possible, and then enjoy that life in privacy with as little intrusion or interference as possible? Which choice gives you the best chance to fulfill the 3 principles I have listed? If you strive to live by those principles, which outcome will you most likely see? Stay tuned for Part Two.