You will have noticed that my posts this week have all been patriotic in nature.  I learned those values at my father's knee.  My father was especially fond of eagles.  His favorite scripture (as evidenced by the fact that it is engraved upon his headstone) is from Isaiah 40:31 ~ But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles.  

In America today, we need to renew our strength.  Our economy is in disarray, we live in constant fear of terrorist attack (if you don't believe me, remember the last time you went through an airport security check), we spend our strength - together with our time and our money - on those things that have no value.  We kill our unborn children and call it choice.  We have redefined marriage and call it tolerance. We have given up our freedoms in the name of national security and have all but obliterated the first ammendment of our Constitution. 

We define our values based on what comes out of Hollywood, not what we hear from the pulpit.  Madison Avenue controls our spending.  We tithe neither our time nor our money.  We have taken the mantra of the sixties - If it feels good, do it! - to new depths even our hippie grandparents might find startling.  The ideas behind the shocking bumper sticker of 1966 - Sex, Drugs, and Rock and Roll* is no longer shocking but mainstream.  Our national strength has been dissipated on these values for almost fifty years and we are now reaping the result of a weak and dissolute nation. 

So how do we renew our strength as a nation?  Isaiah tells us: we wait upon the Lord.  Some may interpret that as waiting for the Second Coming and that's a fair interpretation, but America needs to do something now.  Might I suggest another definition of wait as found in the word waiter.  What does a good waiter do to serve?  Let us make a list of those attributes together.  Send them to me as a comment or on Facebook or by email to gebaraedu@yahoo.com and I will post them.

The eagle is the symbol of America.  We need to reclaim our country.  We need to do it in the way Isaiah defined it.  We need to do it now.  Let us not clip the wings of our eagle but let it soar again in honor and majesty. 

*Expand this to all forms of entertainment and you get a much broader picture of the cultural revolutions of the past 50 years.