It's Not God's Problem

In his State of the Union address, President Obama promised the American people that he would give them an accounting for how their tax dollars are spent. Our society is complex and no one knows where our taxes are going, only that we seem to be paying too much. Recently, the White House released a website where our citizens can go and plug in their own numbers and get an itemized report of where their tax dollars were spent. Check it out here: http://www.whitehouse.gov/issues/taxes/tax-receipt

As our economy struggles and it appears that things will only get worse, Americans are turning to prayer out of desperation. We can’t seem to learn the wisdom of turning to God before we make bad decisions and thus avoid desperation. But, God is not obligated to provide for wants that we’ve turned into needs.

Many Americans are proclaiming the end-times as the cause for all the wars, corporate corruption, lack of morals and character, and all the ills that seem to be threatening our lives. I suggest that we’re just harvesting what we've sown.

People ask “Why is God letting me go through this?” And the answer is, “Because you got what you asked for.” For generations now, Americans have turned to the government for sustenance rather than to Him. Every time we’ve told our representatives we wanted something, it’s come with a price tag in the form of taxes.

We demand clean water; our politicians say “I can provide that”. We demand highways so that we can travel and conduct business and they say, “Sure – no problem.” We demand safer working environments, and the government legislates the workplace. We demand protection from danger from enemies foreign and domestic, and our government supplies a military and police/fire protection. We demand a minimum wage and the government requires businesses to pay more, so the cost of payroll causes prices to rise for everyone.

We want the elderly and poor taken care of, but not out of our wallets - let the government provide for our seniors and the impoverished. We don't know our neighbor well enough to lend him our chain saw when a tree falls on his house, let him call FEMA for help. We don't have time to monitor our kids' activities, the government must screen movies and rate music for us.

We demand healthcare, and the government gets to decide what your life is worth and it tells you what to put in and on your body. We demand compensation when we are injured or feel slighted, and the government forces businesses and individuals to purchase insurance to cover lawsuits. We demand the right to parade our sexual preferences or our racial and cultural differences – things that have nothing to do with our character or our worth, and the government writes laws banning hate-speech. We demand the right to not be inconvenienced with unwanted pregnancies, and the government funds groups like Planned Parenthood. We demanded an income in our retirement, and the government gave us Social Security. We demanded medical care when we’re retired and have no health insurance –and the government gave us Medicare/Medicaid.

If we can’t get what we want for free from the government, we steal it, and the government provides prisons and guards. We demand the right to buy houses we can’t afford and the government guarantees the loan with taxpayer’s money. We demand the right to have what we want now rather than wait until we can afford it, and the government regulates how much interest the credit card lenders can charge you. We demand equal opportunity, and the government forces businesses to hire employees based on affirmative action rather than qualifications. We demand the right to a free education and the government tells us what can and can’t be taught to our children. We demand that our kids be able to go to college even if their grades aren’t worthy, and the government provides student loans and grants.

Worse, even if you don’t want the government involved in any of these things, your tax dollars are funding them. You may be employed, but you’re paying 4.4% of the costs for those who don’t work. You have always worked to support your family, but 10.7% for those who can’t or won’t. You don’t mind the 26% spent on national defense, but you do mind the 1.7% spent on aid to foreign countries.

America has gotten what we’ve wanted, but it’s cost us more than it’s worth. We are paying for things we never benefitted from, and we’re passing along to our children and grandchildren a debt that they can’t afford to pay. America has been selfish. We were not satisfied with life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness –we wanted more. We ignored our founders when they warned about giving government too much power or about entering into entangling alliances that serve us no useful purpose. We ignored the fact that they were dependent upon the Creator for the foundation of our nation, and their prayers for our continued success, and we allowed our government to be everything to everyone.

Now we turn to God and expect Him to ignore what we’ve demanded all these years. We expect Him to help us choose the right lottery numbers or give us an idea that will make us wealthy. We want out of our circumstances; but we don’t want to let go of the things that are keeping us enslaved.

Whether God chooses to come to the aid of any of us is up to Him. We chose to put our trust in compromisers and power seekers. God just let us have our way. We have no right to expect most of the services that our government supplies, but if we’re going to demand them; we’ve got to pay for them. If we don’t want to pay for them, let’s get rid of them. It’s not God’s problem, it’s ours.

No comments: