Gunpowder Chronicle posted on July 4, 2007 4:03 AM | Rating:
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Happy Independence Day to all my fellow Americans. And on this hallowed day, I want to express my thanks and gratitude three ways:
First, I want to thank God for blessing our revolution, our cause, our country, and our people. Not only were we endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable right, but we have been blessed a million times over by Him and all that he has given us-- sometimes when we deserved the exact opposite. In this, I think America is a shining example of what my Calvinist friends would undeserved grace. God blessed us to be a blessing; may we forever hold that cherished role in the affairs of His universe.
Second, I want to thank those crazy, brilliant, phenomenal men who toiled on the issue of Independence through the Siege of Boston in 1775 up through July of 1776. The notion of "an American Nation" was treason at this time. In fact, most Americans considered themselves Englishmen living abroad, not Colonials. But the inner desire of their heart-- a desire planted by God and nurtured by the very mother country they renounced -- compared them to dream big and act boldly. Their act wasn't perfect, and it stil isn't. But with every year, Americans are more free, more prosperous, and a greater blessing to the entire world. While Jefferson would no doubt lament our "foreign entanglements", he would be pleased at the character of the men and women we send overseas to those entanglements, and the tremendous efforts they take to protect the innocent and powerless. Those men set a standard we are hard pressed to meet today. The created a nation from the toil of farmers and planters, merchants and trappers.
Third, I want to thank the soldiers, sailors, Marines, airmen, and coast guardsmen past, present, and future for their steadfast dedication to honor, duty, and country that has preserved the freedoms declared that hot July day two hundred and thirty one years ago. They are our nation's greatest treasure, and all of them should be honored, respected, and loved for their service and fealty.