Right in the centre - In God we trust
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- Published on Thursday, December 7, 2017
By Ken Waddell
Neepawa Banner & Press
In God we trust is the official motto of the United States of America. Adopted officially in 1956 by the U.S. government, it is followed to varying degrees by the U.S. government and its citizens. Also to varying degrees, it is held near and dear by other countries and to a greater or lesser extent by individuals everywhere. I say to a greater or lesser extent because how much we trust in God is a matter of choice. Countries and individuals make that choice every day.
In the Bible in Luke 10:27 it quotes Jesus, “And he answering said, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbour as thyself.” If any one verse sums up how we should approach God, life and our fellow man, that is the verse.
If that is the case, then questions arise very quickly. How can a country have capital punishment, the death sentence, for crimes committed if they believe that verse? The answer will quickly come back that the Bible clearly instructs the death sentence for many crimes, not just murder. Yes, it does, but that is in the Old Testament(OT) or old covenant and as we approach Christmas time, we should be reminded that Jesus birth is the New Testament(NT) or the new covenant. The OT contains a lot of rules, laws and history. Some of the laws are God ordained, some are man ordained but all are instructive as is the recorded history. However Christ brought in the NT and that changed everything. Or at least it should have.
There are some blatant infractions of Luke 10:27 in our world today. How can a country have a policy of torturing war prisoners under Luke 10:27? You might say, how can a country have a war policy and that is a good question, but a country and an individual does need to be prepared to defend in the direst of circumstances. It might be illustrative to observe that policemen carry a gun. The vast majority never take their gun out of the holster. An even larger majority never fire their gun in action. Isn’t that a good thing?
A recent poll suggests that the majority of Canadians don’t trust their government. That’s certainly no surprise. How could the majority of Americans trust their government when the heads of the U.S governments have alternated for decades between buffoons, figureheads and men of questionable morality? Canadians didn’t trust Steven Harper and they voted him out. Justin Trudeau’s wave of alternate popularity is crumbling daily. Other countries leadership varies between dictatorships to disjointed versions of socialism and capitalism. If countries, and especially the lawmakers trusted more in God and less in themselves, if they followed Luke 10:27, the world would be a better place for certain. The Bible also speaks a lot about being humble and that attribute appears to be missing among many people and especially leaders. Instead of having a God trusting humbleness, many leaders show arrogance and are outrightly dismissive. That is a problem for our world.
As individuals, we need to humbly trust in God as our circumstances seem to waver daily and sometimes hourly. Circumstances can change very quickly so we cannot depend on circumstances. We must depend on God and his love for us. It isn’t easy for sure but it is the best way. Each day, each moment, we need to ask ourselves the well worn phrase of a few decades ago, WWJD? What would Jesus do? “And he answering said, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbour as thyself.”
Yes, in God we (should) trust.
