Your Real Source for Hope

An excellent piece from my friend Lenny Cacchio

These are days that require our best. Though for some time there has been no attack on our homeland, dangers to our freedom and security are real, and many sense a general unease over the course of events. We see a growing proliferation of nuclear know-how and capabilities among nations whose intents and purposes are not ours. We see a diminution of our national wealth through increasing trade deficits and the transfer of jobs and productive capacity overseas. Communists and oil sheiks finance our government deficits, and our porous borders invite the importation of criminals and terrorists. The terrorist attacks on our troops and the Iraqi people seem to continue unabated and there is no end in sight.

Recent reports indicate that illegals have been able to obtain commercial drivers licenses, allowing them to transport hazardous materials with all the attendant national security concerns attendant thereto. Gangs from El Salvador are known to have contacts with Al Qaeda with the intent of smuggling in terrorists through the Southern border.

In the meantime, our own Supreme Court seems intent on eroding the rights imbedded in the Constitution, in some cases looking to precedents of foreign courts to justify their decisions, and in others ignoring the clear intent of the founding documents in order to impose entirely new legal theories. The recent decision of Kelo vs. New London clearly contradicts the intent of the Fifth Amendment, which among other things is supposed to protect private property from confiscation by some other private interest that happens to have better financing and better political connections. The road to serfdom is paved one cobblestone at a time.

The question is whether we have the will to do what it would take to protect ourselves in the face of mounting threats to our security and sovereignty. The history of the English-speaking peoples is a resolute march toward freedom and human dignity, and we must not allow ourselves to lose our ages-long legacy won through the toil and tears of those who came before because we doubt our worthiness, or because of political infighting over who is in charge, or because of petty self-indulgence that places personal fulfillment over the eternal truths that guide the forward march of human potential. Our history is one of struggle for ideals greater than ourselves, and our forbearers won for us our freedoms because their spines were not made of cotton candy.

Yet as we see the mounting threats and fret over the our disintegrating protective hedges, we must remember that millions of our fellow citizens see the dangers and know from where our true deliverance must come. If we look only to ourselves for deliverance we must surely fail. The Psalmist tells us, “The Lord is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer; My God, my strength, in whom I will trust; My shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold. I will call upon the Lord, who is worthy to be praised; So shall I be saved from my enemies.” (Psalm 18:2-3 NKJV)

In the days of Elijah, the prophet fretted to God his loneliness in his convictions. Elijah did not realize that God had reserved for himself seven thousand people who had not bowed the knee to Baal (I Kings 19). I dare say there are more than seven thousand today who know the way and try to walk in it. They are the resolute who know from where their true deliverance must come. They are not made of cotton candy.