Sometimes YOU Gotta "Create" What You Want To Be A Part Of...

Today, I am preparing for a big 4th of July gathering this whole weekend with friends and family. I am going to Newnan, Ga which is a few hours from my town of Rome to visit with Noel who just got married. They bought an old plantation homestead which should really set the mood for an old-fashioned 4th. As I was thinking about her new life and place, I found myself thinking about exactly what the 4th of July means for me today and what the Founding Fathers went through.

Therefore, before getting caught up in the "festivities" of the weekend with fireworks, grilling and wine, I wanted to stop and pay homage to this season by getting real and personal in The Pursuit of Happiness. I believe that personal happiness hinges on a practicality: if your "reality" lives up to your "expectations", your happy. If it doesn't, your depressed. This is as real, personal, and simple as the philosophy gets, and it makes perfect sense.

This means we now have a "CREATIVE" choice to make if we want to be happy. Do we consciously and continually strive for "MORE" accomplishments and accumulations? Or, do we lower our "expectations", live with what we have at the moment, and LEARN TO BE CONTENT? Many mistakenly think that lowering our "expectations" means we must surrender our dreams---which kinda sounds like "giving up".

ABSOLUTELY NOT!!!

Dreams and expectations are two very different things. Dreams are like declarations and call for a LEAP OF FAITH, trusting that Spirit is holding the net, so that you can continue in the "re-creation" of the world with your energy, your soul, your gifts, and your vision. Living your life as a "dreamer" and not as an "expector" is a personal declaration of independence. You're able to pursue happiness more directly when you don't get "caught up" in the details. Dreaming, not "expecting" allows Spirit to step in and and surprise you with connection, completion, consummation, celebration. You dream. You show up for work. Then, let Spirit deliver your voice and your dream to the world.

It is precisely this thinking which "CREATED" The United States of America, and The Declaration of Independence with its "Right" to Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness. During the first days of July in 1776 the Continental congress was considering of of the most historical events OF ALL TIME--the Declaration by 13 colonies to become the New Nation of the United States of America.

Just months earlier, Patrick Henry, the orator of The American Revolution urged the Virginia Convention of the delegates to take up arms since they had exhausted every means of protest and flight. He said:

"Sir, we have done everything that could be done to avert the storm which is now coming on. We have petitioned-we have supplicated--we have prostrated ourselves before the throne, and have implored its interposition to arrest the tyrannical hands of the ministry and parliament. There is no longer any room for hope. If we wish to be free...we must fight!---I repeat it, Sir, we must FIGHT! An appeal to arms and to the God of Hosts is all that is left us! There is a just god who presides over the destinies of nations and He will raise up friends to fight our battles for us. The battle, sir , is no to the strong alone; it is to the vigilant, the active, the brave...There is no retreat but in submission and slavery!...Gentleman may cry, "Peace! Peace!---but there is no peace...Is life so dear, and peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? FORBID IT, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, GIVE ME LIBERTY OR GIVE ME DEATH!"

We all have heard this last line...but do we recognize history repeating itself now? As the tyranny of our Government attempt to strip from us our right to bear arms (wonder if they disarm us...then no repeat of older times ...ummm?) More and more government, and less and less INDEPENDENT THINKING allowed. If I may take a trip down the lane of that time and what they accomplished...through much for our futures. Yet, will we just sit back and allow America be trampled down like a garden under a stampede?

On the issue of independence back in 1776, all the colonies were agreed, but a few of the more "cautious ones" were not sure as to the "timing". Rev. John Witherspoon, a delegate from New Jersey answered their concerns as he said:

"There is a tide in the affairs of men. We perceive it now before us. To hesitate is to consent to our very own slavery. That NOBLE INSTRUMENT should be subscribed to this very morning by every pen in this house. Though these gray hairs must soon descent to the sepulcher, I would infinitely rather they descend thither by the hand of the executioner than desert at the crisis---THE SACRED CAUSE OF MY COUNTRY!"

The delegates went on to approve the Declaration of Independence. After the announcement of the vote, silence moved over the Congress as the mend contemplated the magnitude of what they had just done. Some wept openly, while others bowed in prayer. After signing The Declaration with unusually large writing, the President of the Continental Congress, JOHN HANCOCK, broke the silence as he declared, "His majesty can now read my name without glasses. And he can double the price on my head"--then, he went on to say at this tense moment, "We must be unanimous; there must be no pulling different ways; we must all hang together."

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN responded in his characteristic wit, "Yes, we must indeed all hang together, or most assuredly we shall all hang separately!" A brief chuckle followed and the SAMUEL ADAMS, whom men of that day ascribed "the greatest part in the greatest revolution of the world," rose and stated:

"We have this day RESTORED the Sovereign to Whom alone men ought to be obedient. He reigns in heaven and ...from the rising to the setting of the sun, may His Kingdom come."

The men who helped give birth to America understood what was taking place. They saw in the establishment of America THE FIRST TRULY CHRISTIAN NATION IN HISTORY!

As Franklin suggested, they did "hang together", but even so, many of these signers as well as tens of thousands of colonist lost their lives, property, families, and reputations in order to purchase liberty for themselves and all their posterity------US.

What was it that MOTIVATED these people to risk everything in order that they might have freedom? What was it that brought about the events leading to the colonists declaring their independence?

JOHN ADAMS, our second President and a leader in the CAUSE of "independence", revealed what he and many others thought as he wrote on the day that the colonies declared their independence:

"It is the Will of Heaven that the two countries should be sundered forever; it may be the Will of Heaven that America shall suffer calamities still more wasting and distresses yet more dreadful. If this is to be the case, the furnace of affliction produces refinement in states as well as individuals; but I submit ALL MY HOPES AND FEARS to an overruling Providence, in which, unfashionable as the faith may be, I firmly believe."

JOHN HANCOCK echoed the reliance upon God and the belief that the destiny of nations is in the hand of God as he said;

"Let us humbly commit our righteous cause to the Lord of the Universe...Let us joyfully leave our concerns in the hands of Him who raises up and puts down the empires and kingdoms of the earth as He pleases."

This firm reliance UPON GOD was so universally adhered to among those in America that the Continental Congress insisted it be included in the Declaration of Independence. While reviewing THOMAS JEFFERSON'S original draft of the Declaration, the committee assigned to the task added the words, "they are endowed by their CREATOR with certain unalienable rights." Then, when the Declaration was debated before Congress, they added the phrase, "appealing to the Supreme Judge of The World, for the rectitude of our intentions," as well as the words "with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence."

Most of the revisions of Jefferson's original work had to do with the Lord. thus we see the Continental Congress declaring to all the world their Christian convictions.

Not only does the Declaration of Independence reflect our founders faith in God, but as we have seen previously, this DOCUMENT only came into being as a result of BIBLICAL ideas that had been sown into the hearts of the colonist for 150 years.

The American Revolution was a revolution of ideas and dreams long before it was a revolution of war. As the clergy and other leaders taught the colonist their God-given rights as men, Christians and subjects, the inevitable result was a nation birthed in LIBERTY.

"Vice will increase with the riches and glory of an empire; and this generally tends to corrupt the Constitution and in time bring on its dissolution. This may be a religious judgment from Heaven, especially upon a nation which has been favored with the blessings of religion and liberty and is GUILTY of "undervaluing them..."

In closing...The Church has been given authority to shape history. If our Nation is in an awful condition, God holds us responsible. In 2 Chronicles 7:14 He says:

If My People who are called by My Name humble themselves and pray, seek My Face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.

I believe the power for healing our land rests with God's people. Even Christ said "I give you Authority over all your enemies."

America's decline has not occurred because the ideas and leadership of various organizations have overcome Biblical ideas. Rather, it is because we abdicated our responsibility to lead, and in "effect" left a void or vacuum in the public realm that has been surrendered by default. We once maintained our Christian character as a nation. Then, began our period of "falling away" when we worshipped the "effect" of our great success---and forgot the "cause". This vacuum ws readily filled with man-centered philosophers and men of "great speech" which replaced the internal battles of conscience with the social, economic and political struggles of society.

America has repeated the folly of Israel. god warned them of the danger of apostasy once they entered the promised land and began to ENJOY PROSPERITY AND PEACE. Within a short time a generation arose in Israel as will as America that was "unfaithful" to the God and "traditions" of their freedom in their fathers. They began to neglect the things that produced their freedom in the first place.

We lost our "virtue" and our self-government" and became "prey" to what Samuel Adams call "INTERNAL INVADERS".

Through-out the Revolution, less than a majority of the population were "official" members of a church (although a definate majority attended church and almost every one had a Biblical view of life). God never requires a "moral majority" to affect a Nation...only a "righteous remnant" who really understood their duties in all of life.

May the day come soon, when we the remnant may echoes those words spoken hundreds of years ago with the Signing of The Declaration of Independence..."We have this day RESTORED the Sovereign to Whom alone men ought to be obedient. He reigns in heaven and ...from the rising to the setting of the sun, may His Kingdom come."

Father in Heaven, I, Teresa D. Smith, ask forgiveness for all my sins. I am guilty of having enjoyed the effects of Freedom far more than holding to its Cause. My own will has deceived me, and today I ask forgiveness. In as much as it is possible, I humbly ask forgiveness on THESE that are called by your name, and too have allowed this evil (NWO) to come upon this land...although you allowed it to show us our folly. Today, as I celebrate Liberty And Freedom, let me not forget the stripes by which we are all healed, and by your grace and mercy...I ask you in Jesus name to heal our Nation. Begin in me, Lord a new beginning...and as our Fore Fathers birthed this great nation...may we be fore-mothers, for-brothers, and fore-sisters birthing a New Age of Christianity. Forgive us for not leading better. Help us to do so, for this land upon which America sits is GRACELAND. Amen.