It's about Time to Hit Pause

Christmas is at our doorstep once again---my wife has purchased SO many gifts for the grandkids. The love of her life now is their welfare and happiness. With that in mind, I jump to a broader subject---broader, but not more significant. Don't get me wrong.

The USA sends "approximately $800,000,000,000 in mandatory payments and voluntary contributions . . ." to the United Nations. Also, we spend "$23,000,000,000 on foreign humanitarian assistance and international development and $14,000,000,000 on foreign military assistance." I include the zeroes intentionally to try to get you to focus on those amounts more closely. And, I could go on and on listing various stats. My point:  Please reflect on the dollars the USA sends from here to there (wherever)! Personally, I believe we spend too much money around the world and not enough here at home solving our internal problems. I realize the many arguments that can be made in support of foreign "aid," but, sorry, they're just wrong [just like abortion is "wrong"]. 

Another huge problem is the waste and corruption in the public monies that are spent here at home. I could easily throw out some impressive stats on spending here at home. We as a nation are so blessed by our Creator that we have become careless, nonchalant wasters. We have created a monster of convoluted entanglement of mismanagement and corruption and budgeting that defies revision and correcting. 

As I listen to the GOP debates (where ARE those Dem debates?), I have not heard ANYone speak of that monstrosity at all in any fashion at all. Where is the concern for those things? Where is it? No one has a solution apparently. No one wants to talk about it, I guess. No one has the backbone or stomach (strange terms indeed) to propose ANYthing. Actually, no one has suggested ANY solutions or attempts to solve anything.

Don't you think it's about time to hit pause---to call a time-out. Isn't it time for a genuine reflection, for an unpoliticized search for solutions, for corrections---before we get back to vaulting headfirst toward the edge? 

Humans really are capable of the searching, forethought, and preparation necessary for solving problems. I believe it. I ask members of our government who aren't completely sold-out to monied-interests to step up. To attempt to begin a change in the slide in our nation. "The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now He calls all people everywhere to repent" (Acts 17:30). Hey, USA, the "times of ignorance" must be left behind us if we are to have any chance to survive as a nation. God said in Isaiah 1:18, "Come now and let us reason together . . . though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool." Yes, we can reason with God and with each other to find solutions to problems. We must!

Many will contend (and therein is much of the anger in our citizens) that no solution is possible. They may, perhaps, be right. So, I think, like my wife, I'm going to focus on the immediate happiness and welfare of our grandkids and children and enjoy the Christmas spirit in our home and family. The rest? Well, in faith, I'm going to leave the larger purposes to God's capable hands. Please don't call me names like quitter or all-talk-no-action. God will ultimately "solve" all my concerns. He's my Rock.

Since I started this blog in May, 2015, we've had 1700 reads. Hope we've helped someone's day once in a while. Want to wish the real Merry Christmas to all my friends and readers!!!

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