Bedrock

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 comp...

Whom do you trust? As I think about the issues of the day, I believe much of it boils down to the answer to this one question: Whom do you trust? Do you think I mean some person, party, or organization—conservative or liberal, Democratic or Republican, Christian or multicultural or something else? Could it be your wife, your dad, your president, or pastor? Surely we can trust our best friend, our Mom or grandma, or at least the best person we know! Can we? Most of us have assumed we could trust teachers, civic leaders, professional colleagues, and certain highly regarded institutions like the courts. Experience can be a painful teacher when abruptly we find that someone or something we trusted has let us down or disappointed us. Here is the lesson I have learned: Although I try to give everyone the benefit of the doubt, I don’t really trust anyone except God [1] . I am not a cynic. By temperament, I am an optimist, and I tend to expect things to work out and assume, at th...