Enjoy the holiday but pray about the storm!

It’s Monday, September 1, 2008, hurricane Gustav is approaching the Louisiana coast and we continue to seek God's protective care for all in harm's way. At the same time it’s Labor Day here in the USA, so do your best to enjoy it! Gustave is of Scandinavian origin meaning ‘Royal Staff’ and Gustav comes from the German derivitive and we are praying that it will not become a ‘Royal Pain’ as it comes ever closer. Sadly, it already has claimed many victims before arriving on our shores. As we deal with weather events like this one, remember my blogs about how that all creation is groaning and try always to perceive all things through the lens of truth, that being God’s Holy Word.

As we pause today to honor the great tradition of labor here in our country, I want to thank God for the tremendous opportunities He has given to our nation in this area. We have such a wonderful heritage of work in this country and we have accomplished an unbelievable amount in our relatively short history. However, I will tell you straight out that our situation in terms of our capacity to produce goods and services for ourselves is in great peril today. Americans believe in trade. Americans are competitive by nature. But Americans have to a large extent been sold a bill of goods regarding the fairness of how we have gone about trade. Because of this, ‘Made in America’ has become a vanishing moniker as we spiral our way through the unrelenting vortex of so-called ‘free trade’.

We don’t have to consult our founders to know this is not what America’s greatness is all about. In fact, Sam Walton himself, founder of Wal-Mart, was an outspoken advocate of building up America’s capacity to build the products we need in our own country. But under the disguise of a banner called free trade we have sold our souls at the altar of cheap prices brought to us on the backs of child labor, sweatshops, and people coerced into slave like conditions. The end result on this Labor Day 2008 is an America that finances and pays for the very weapons aimed against us. Only in a few places do we hear the truth about exactly what is going on. Our great power is waning as more and more of our so-called partners are using our dollars to buy up our institutions. I call this a travesty and I predict it will haunt us for generations to come.

I am not a protectionist but anyone with a lick of sense can see that ‘fairness’ in our trading left the building before we ever even started. I am not a huge fan of much of how trade unions function within our supposed free enterprise system but I well understand why they are trying to stop some of the destruction brought on by this run away train. It’s not hopeless but it is a sad commentary whenever we have essentially done this to ourselves. Our economy now is totally dependent upon us continuing on this self-destructive track. What a testimony to the truths from God’s Word where He warns us not to follow our own wisdom but to seek Him and His direction in all our ways. You may think I am a prophet of gloom and doom but that would not be true. I am one who is optimistically proud that my faith and hope is in the God who sent His Son to die for the sins of the world. That’s the only reason I can look forward to the future He has for us! Happy Labor Day 2008 and may God bless one and all. Amen. ….More later.