Happy Warriors Until the End
In Pittsburgh this past weekend I spoke at Right Online. Rob Bluey asked if I would give the audience some advice. Let me share that with you now. If you aren’t a Christian, you may not understand this, but I’ll put it here anyway.
William Wilberforce, having become an evangelical, wrote to his good friend Prime Minister William Pitt. Wilberforce told Pitt he intended to get out of politics and dedicate himself to the Lord. Pitt relied on Wilberforce and saw Wilberforce could be someone strong and apply his faith to life if he just wouldn’t quit.
In Pitt’s reply to Wilberforce, Pitt wrote, “If a Christian may act in the several relations of life, must he seclude himself from them all to become so? Surely the principles as well as the practice of Christianity are simple, and lead not only to meditation only but to action.“
Pitt was no evangelical, but I think he got it there. Our faith compels us to action. But in our actions and our struggles, it often seems the Christ follower, a term I use to separate those who actually follow Christ from those who call themselves Christians by habit and nothing else, are dealt setback after setback.
On occasion our frustration gets the best of us. We get angry and frustrated. We sometimes want to sit it out — to go into seclusion and meditation.
That brings me to Psalm 73, which I quoted at Right Online. Asaph, the writer, lamented the fact that all around him those who feared God were struggling while those who rejected God appeared to prosper. The people who hated God were doing mighty fine.
Nothing has changed. The secular crowd that routinely attacks evangelicals, the folks who want to take God out of the national conversation or, at minimum, turn Him into something He is not, always seem to do pretty well in life.
Asaph wrote, “I envied the arrogant when I saw the prosperity of the wicked. They have no struggles; their bodies are healthy and strong. They are free from the burdens common to man …. Therefore pride is their necklace; they clothe themselves with violence.”
Asaph was pretty put out. The folks who, in his mind, should not be prospering were prospering.
But Asaph, in considering this, realized and knew “God is good … to those who are pure in heart.” Of those wicked who were prospering he wrote, “Surely you place them on slippery ground; you cast them down to ruin. How suddenly are they destroyed, completely swept away by terrors!”
That’s the conundrum of this life. The wicked do prosper. That is the way it has always been. But victory ultimately belongs to those who know the real God.
And so we struggle to make it through this life into eternity.
At Right Online, I talked about what Asaph wrote, and then gave my advice I’ll now give you.
Victory comes, though we know not when. We must be happy warriors until the end.
For those of you who struggle with what goes on, who see retreat and capitulation, and who feel like not just your political opponents, but those who hold dear all those things you hold as blasphemous — be cheerful. Be happy. Victory is already yours.
You must just have the courage to not get discouraged and have the will to fight on.
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Speaking of Pittsburgh, an interesting story from another conservative individual that attended a townhall in Kittanning, PA with Senator Specter:
The liberals nutroots are certainly skilled at stirring up fake controversy. That much is very true. The left has way more practice at socialism and telling lies. I don’t think we need to get this organized. Only collectivism practices these kind of thug tactics. We, as individuals, need to stay involved, and as I saw in the PCN rebroadcast of these townhall meetings, we need to stay calm, cool and collected, and ask the kinds of logical questions I saw coming from the concerned skeptics of this bill. Specter had very short and illogical answers
to most of the pragmatic questions. Specter of course had longer and romantic answers to those who basically said: I want free health care on the backs of other people’s labors. YES WE CAN!
With respect to the photos, I don’t think this is the same individual. They are merely two separate nuts in the liberal moonbat wing. With luck, these young misguided individuals will grow up and act more respectfully.
Doug Bauman
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Very interesting indeed. So is what I experience below:
I attended the Kittanning Arlen Specter Town Hall meeting. I did not get in but was on the outside with the 1500 people which included a group who were up against the hill with loudspeakers. I saw someone I knew sitting on the hill above them and moved around to see them and as I passed this big guy in a red t-shirt and red ex-marine ball cap he sort of stepped back and bumped me. I turned to look at him and I saw this woman from the pro-health plan side had a professional poster in this ex-marines face and he proceeded to rip it out of her hand. Well when he did she jumped in his face and I felt someone hit me on my other side and I looked over to and saw a person with a video camera recording this confrontation. I immediately saw that this was a set up and that the pro health care people appeared to video it. At that point I had my camera out and I saw another pro health person, a slight built, blonde hair young man in a long sleeve shirt and tie just get into this ex-marines face with some serious anger. I decided to jump in and told the marine he was being set up and that I say the woman assault him with the sign and asked that they get me on the video. While doing this I snapped the photo below of the young blond man with the tie and very angry face. The whole thing sort of calmed down and the ex-marine thanked me.
Now the good part. That was Wednesday the 12th.
On Saturday the 15th I read the Valley New Dispatch, my local paper and when I got to page A8 I see this photograph of “Audience members ask questions to President Obama a town hall meeting on health care Friday (the 14th) at Gallatin Field in Belgrade, Mont. (Article, Obama downplays protests
Well I looked at the photo and right in the middle who do I see but this slight built, blond young man with a long sleeve shirt on with his hand raised to ask a question. As I looked the young blond man I described above from the Kittanning Town Hall came to mind and I could not but recognize the resemblance. Below is my digital shot of the photo in the paper and my photo of the angry young pro health care person I described above. Except for what appears to be a thinning hair line (that the top light could blow out color wise) it looks to me like this guy was in Kittanning on Wednesday and in Belgrade, Mont. Friday. Check out the photos yourself and be the judge. It would be interesting to do some research to see exactly who the Union, Socialists, ACORN and the several other special interest groups were at the Kittanning Town Hall meeting.
My conclusion was the opposition is well organized, small, loud and has a playbook and many, many years of practice at this and we need get smart, know the oppositions tactics, develop offense and a defensive strategy, organize and practice them.
Please pass this along, edit as needed but I would love to know who the little blonde dude is at Kittanning and who the blonde dude in Montana is too.
B.C.