Taking A Closer Look: What Makes our Nation Great

My son recently bought himself a microscope that connects to his computer and takes pictures.  As I was scrolling through the beautiful images he captured, I was struck by the words on which he focused.  What would the first President say about what made his new nation great?

It's so easy to forget the big picture when hot issues come to the surface.  Recently I read Born Again by Chuck Colson.  While serving as special counsel to Richard Nixon, Colson discovered the dangers of losing sight of the big picture.  During the Nixon administration, his integrity was compromised, and although he did not commit the crime he eventually went to prison for, he felt he was guilty of bending the rules to put out the fires.

Trust makes our nation great.  We trust our leadership to make decisions that will sustain our nation for many years to come.  But our nation was built on the trust that its leadership would submit to a higher authority: God.  When we discard that truth, we find ourselves limited in our ability to sustain anything.  Trust turns inward and contradicts what by definition it aims to achieve.  But we attempt to trust in ourselves all the time.

Webster defines trust as:

Confidence; a reliance or resting of the mind on the integrity, veracity, justice, friendship or other sound principle of another person.

He follows the definition with an example of what he means:

He that putteth his trust in the Lord shall be safe. Prov.29

A closer look at our nation's currency, which many think to make our nation great, actually reveals the true power behind the security that we've experienced over the last 200+ years:

It's easy to get swept away in the power of a moment, or an issue, or a crisis.  In those times of trial, God is faithful to change a man, redeem a man, transform a man into a powerful servant for His cause.  If God can accomplish transforming a man like Chuck Colson, a man who truly desired to live righteously, but trusted in his own strength, He can do it again today.

I trust in the Lord Almighty to change our nation, redeem our nation, and transform our nation once again into a powerful servant for His cause, to unite our nation once again as one under God.