If God Is King...

Americans aren't much for kings.  The last one we had was ridiculed in cartoon and song.  Can't say I blame us, King George.

Even when they threw out their physical king, our founding fathers accepted that there was a Divine Authority to Whom they owed allegiance.  Our Constitution was based on Judeo-Christian laws, bowing to the wisdom of God in establishing an orderly society.

It saddens me that our nation has once again overthrown their King, ridiculing Him in cartoon and song.  We no longer have freedom of religion.  We have activists leading us toward freedom from religion. 

I wish to note here that God does not need our permission to exist.  He doesn't need our permission to act according to His own principles.  It is not His job to give us everything we demand of Him.  He is not required to be politically correct.

Remember kings?  What would happen to someone who came up to the king and demanded anything of him?  What would happen to someone who broke one of the king's laws right in front of his face and then stuck out his tongue at the king and gave him a raspberry? 

So if God does what He does to discipline us, to regain our attention, to remind us He exists, we get angry at Him.  Or better yet, we call it something ungodly like "global warming".

You might review those verses that say there will be signs in the heavens, men's hearts failing them for fear, or the sun will be given power to scorch the earth.  It also says that no one will repent even in the face of earthquakes and other disasters. 

Lack of repentance is one of the signs of the end times. It's worth thinking about.

Final Exam Coming Up

I've been lax about my blog while I was taking the online class.  Wow!  Was there a lot of homework!  Plus my brother visited for a week and Angela came during Thanksgiving week. But life is about to slow down a tad.

Christmas shopping is finished.  I have laid in a little extra food in case of bad weather. I have only my Christmas letter to write and send out.

I got my mother's Christmas letter a couple of days ago.  I know our family is widely scattered and we tend to keep track of each other once or twice a year - but mostly with the annual Christmas letter.  I did think, however, that when some family member or other died, the news would get around.  I was amazed to hear that I lost another cousin in August.

One might expect aunts and uncles to pass away, especially when they are well into their eighties.  Of those on my mother's side, I have lost only two married-in uncles. I'm the third oldest cousin on my father's side and the oldest one on my mother's side.  This is the third cousin I've lost, and they were all younger than I am.  Two of them were the only sons in their family.

I wonder sometimes - is our family so large that the statistics allow for some younger ones to die, or .... what? 

I had a Bible verse in mind about the death of young people.  When I looked it up, I found that I had the words wrong.  Whether this applies to my cousins or not, I can't say, but here is the verse that comes to me when I don't understand why someone suddenly disappears from my life when they haven't fulfilled a good number of years:

Isaiah 57

 ¹ The righteous perish,
   and no one takes it to heart;
the devout are taken away,
   and no one understands
that the righteous are taken away
   to be spared from evil.
² Those who walk uprightly
   enter into peace;
   they find rest as they lie in death. (NIV)

Our nation especially is rushing towards amoral/immoral "lifestyles" as fast as it can.  Anyone who stands up for right and wrong is called bigotted, prejudiced, etc.  We aren't supposed to make someone "feel bad".  I wonder how those people will "feel" when they are dead and no longer able to change their minds about where they end up. 

God does not need anyone's permission to exist. 

(How do I get from Christmas letters to the state of the nation to hell in one blog?  I don't know.)

Thanks for visiting with me,

Kathi