Have you ever considered how fortunate you are to be a citizen of a free nation? What if you had been born into another country or culture, one that limited your choices or oppressed you or demanded great sacrifices from you at the hands of a terrible dictator? What would your life be like right now?
As I've been watching the news about the earthquake in Haiti, the thought has been going through my mind: I might have been born there. If I were a Haitian, how would life be for me now? If I had lived through the earthquake, how would I deal with finding food, getting medical help, or digging through rubble to find friends or family who had perished? What if I didn't have a home or food or even clean clothes? How would I handle seeing such death and destruction?
What if I didn't have a television to hear the news so I could complain about my government? What if I was starving and did not know where my next meal was coming from? How would I sleep wondering whether someone would harm me during the night? What if I was trapped under the rubble, barely alive, struggling for my next breath? What if I was straining to get a handout of food right now? How could I handle all the Haitians are facing?
These questions are not just musings of an idle mind; they are rational questions to ask ourselves. God has given us so much privilege and so many possessions. We are (over)fed, fairly healthy, wealthy by most standards, and we are free. The fact that we are reading this WEEKLY MESSAGE from a computer confirms all this. We can choose most of what we do today. We can change our surroundings, our clothes or even our minds. How blessed we are!
Jesus Christ is our Lord and Savior. If we died today, God has a place prepared in heaven for us. We were not born into a religion that twists the truth into lies, or worships a god who demands we kill those who do not believe as we do. We do not trample on the rights of others or make women into slaves or sacrifice what little we have to gods who don't exist.
No, we are citizens of a free nation. We know Jesus Christ. We are free to alter most of the things around us, free to read the Bible and believe what it tells us. Our lives are far better than 90% of the rest of the world's population, perhaps better than anyone else we know. We have so much to be grateful for!!!
So why do we complain so much?
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