DAILY DEVOTIONAL 📖   

Hang On To God -

Sometimes it takes outsiders, seeing us with fresh eyes, to remind us of who we are and what we have. 

 

I have two sons-in-law, and one, Mario, was born and raised (up to his teenage years) overseas.  His family immigrated from war torn countries to the USA and settled in Cleveland, and became U.S. citizens. That’s where he met and married our daughter Marcie.  I like him because he calls me “sir”🙂. Both of my sons-in-law are fine young men.

 

Mario has opened my eyes to the features of American life we tend to take for granted. If you are following the World Cup (what Mario calls “real football”) no doubt you have read about visitors coming to America to watch the games, and their perceptions of American lifestyles. 

 

As the Japan Times put it, visiting fans are discovering “a distinctive culture of 24-hour retail, free soda refills, chicken wings dipped in ranch dressing and a warm welcome from Americans.” 

 

Now most of these foreign visitors are fairly wealthy by their country’s standards. You have to have money to come to this country, stay at hotels, eat in restaurants and pay for quite expensive “football” tickets.  And yet these tourists marvel at how wealthy America is. Our wealth is visible in ways that are mundane and ordinary to us. American wealth manifests in some expected ways — larger houses, more spread-out suburbs, bigger cars, wider highways — but also in unexpected ways, such as free and plentiful water fountains and free public restrooms, nearly universal air conditioning, free glasses of ice water when you sit down at a restaurant, complimentary chips and salsa at Mexican eateries. In their home countries they don’t have anything like Buc-ee’s! 

 

We get some big things wrong in this country — too much poverty and crime, too many homeless people, too many obstacles to achieving the American Dream, and too little love of God.  But we’re still the country that people jump onto rickety rafts and try to sail through miles of shark-laden ocean to reach, in hopes of living their own American Dream. And when foreigners visit for a soccer tournament, we show them the time of their lives.

 

So remember…. while we have our problems, and they are serious, as long as we let God be the focal point of our lives, we live better than the tremendous percentage of the people on earth. Hang on to God, and he will reward you richly..in this life, but more so in the world to come.~jme

 

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY…🤔 A dog barks when his master is attacked. I would be a coward if I saw that God's truth is attacked and yet would remain silent.~Pearl S. Buck