What Now?

[Warning: I was home sick yesterday and read a lot of news and watched a lot of news programs. In other words, I actually took my head out of the sand, and now I need to vent about what I saw when I looked around.]

I saw a program where a random group of Americans of various persuasions were being asked several questions by a pollster. The nuclear moment came with this question: “Do you believe America’s best days are behind her?” Nearly every hand went up. 

Someone will hate me for this, but I was forced to concur with the crowd. Yes, being honest with myself, I had to admit that this is something I have come to believe. I don’t want to believe this. I don’t know when I started believing this. I hope I’m wrong, but if I’m honest, I believe this nation was greater at one time than it ever will be again. I don’t think I felt this way fifteen or twenty years ago. Thinking back, I know I didn’t feel this way when Ronald Reagan was president. I’m not sure when I crossed the threshold of negativity, and I’m not saying it has all that much to do with who was president, that’s just the last time I can remember truly believing things would be getting better, not worse.

I would like the reader to understand what a revelation this is to me personally. I did not know this was how I felt. I had not come to grips with this until last night. I’m realizing today that this is a profound moment in my own personal history. I now see my nation, the one my grandfathers and my dad fought for, in a state of decline that will ultimately lead to its death, or the death of everything that makes it the country I love. I am shocked by what I just wrote, but I know history, and I know what I’m seeing, and that’s what I honestly see.

Now, understand that as a Christian, I can think beyond all of this, of course.  I realize my ultimate citizenship is in Heaven, and I have a higher allegiance and a higher calling than can be placed within geographical boundaries or nationalistic patriotism. I’m pretty globally minded most of the time, especially as it comes to the value of people and God’s desire to reach the world for Christ, etc., but even though I’m a pastor more concerned with the spiritual realm, and even though I have an eye to the eternal, can I just put all that on hold for a minute and talk about how I feel about the country of my birth and heritage? Yes, I can, because this is MY blog.

All patriotism aside, there’s also the simple fact that I live here. My children live here.  My children’s children will most likely be living here. And I’ve always known what a privilege it is to live here. People fought and died to protect what it means to live here.  Living here means more than we who have never lived anywhere else realize. Our nation has been truly exceptional and everyone in the world knows it. But I fear we are losing our exceptional status at an alarming rate. The problem isn’t just that less people think we are exceptional, it is that we are much less exceptional than we were twenty years ago. That’s a verifiable fact. That’s the hard truth of the matter. Everything that made the American Experiment so great, is being deconstructed while we watch.

Before I digress into the myriad problems we face as a nation, or all the ways we have chosen to erode our exceptional status, let me try to stay on point. What happened to my optimism?  More importantly, what happened to most of the country’s optimism? Is it just that we’ve had an extended down time and so everyone has gone negative? I don’t think so. There were always down times. Is it all because of President Obama? No, three more years, and we can have someone else who won’t be able to bring us real hope. See, there I go.

In the same show last night, another poignant question was asked. The pollster asked, “If I were to offer you 10 million dollars to live anywhere but America, who would do it?”  Most hands went up.  And he sadly said, “I think this is the first time in my life when American citizenship had a price tag.” The truth is many or most people aren’t so sure there aren’t better places to live right now. What if they’re right? What if we have fallen that far already? I don’t really think that, but what if that’s where we’re headed?  Can anything be done to stop our decline?

That’s another blog or book or series of books, I guess, but I’m not writing to solve problems here. I’m writing to face myself in the mirror. Maybe the first step to something greater for me is this revelation. I have lost faith that we can move forward.  I see a nation divided and falling. I don’t want to see this, but that’s what I see. 

My tendency is to start writing paragraphs now about what we should do next. Pray for revival… evangelize more… maybe be more politically active, etc., etc., but no, I think I just need to stay here for awhile in this place where I am stunned by how I really see my own country. I don’t want to feel this way. What now?