The moment came for me in 1994. Cheering crowds lining streets as O.J. Simpson went down the freeway on a low speed police chase. The man had killed an innocent man, nearly cut the head off the mother of his children, and was now fleeing police. The shock of seeing the throngs cheering this murderer slapped me into the reality that the beloved USA of my youth was gone forever. I had no prior delusions that America was as pure as the wind driven snow, but I had always believed that we had a moral center, and was a shining example to the world how a society should conduct itself.
Over the yrs since then I saw times where I thought maybe we could get it back, like how we came together after 9/11. But I never fully got the sense that we repented as a nation and returned to a moral center. My heart is still heavy as we see the downward spiral we are currently in.
But I'm reminded of the book and movie The Lord of the Rings. In it there is a scene where Denethor the Steward of Gondor looks out from the walls of the city with great despair at the gathered evil orc army, and convinced they will be destroyed proceeds to kill himself. He did not believe in the only real hope they ever had, which was a hobbit dropping a ring in the fires of Mt. Doom.
We CANNOT be like Denether! We have a MUCH greater and more powerful hope in Jesus Christ than a hobbit. So take courage my brothers and sisters, and despair not. GREATER IS HE WHO LIVES IN YOU THAN HE WHO IS IN THE WORLD!!!