Is There Hope for America

It seems every day brings more and more dismal news. The riots across the nation, violence in schools, and the senseless shootings in Charleston, all seemed to crescendo with the tragic decisions of the Supreme Court last week. It makes a person hesitant to even get out of bed in the morning. The final nail in the coffin for me was the rainbow White House. Taking the very symbol of the promise God gave his children and using it to announce to the world—and proclaim to God Himself, “We reject you!” was just too much for my heart to take. It is a tragic representation of the times in which we find ourselves.

How do we dispel such darkness? How do we combat such blatant disregard for all that is good? Many of us have begun to ask ourselves, “Is there any hope for America?”

With all my heart I believe the answer is YES! But I also know that hope doesn’t lie in Washington. It lies with us!

I know it is a hard truth to swallow but the fact is, the Supreme Court’s rulings on marriage and Obamacare are a direct result of the 2012 presidential election. Thousands of Christians sat on their hands and refused to vote. Millions just didn’t vote. Regardless of how you felt about Mitt Romney or his religion I guarantee you, you would not have seen a rainbow White House if he were president. Our choices have consequences.

This isn’t about parties, politics, race or religion. This is about right and wrong and standing up for truth. There are many players in this war but there are only two armies–God (light) and Satan (dark). The time has come to realize this and decide which side we’re on. We can no longer hide our heads in the sand, we can no longer sit on the fence, and we can no longer afford to fight amongst ourselves.

The Supreme Court ruling doesn’t change or alter God’s law that marriage is a union between a man and a woman and that it is ordained by God. This is the truth that unites us. It is the truth we need to stand for and it is the truth we must teach and nurture in our homes and proclaim in our churches.

This is our opportunity for people of faith to come together regardless of party, race or religion, and stand united for our children and our families. The enemy is at the gate. This is not the time to be divided. It is not the time to retreat. We must continue to fight the good fight. We must continue to stand for truth and spread goodness.

We don’t, however, need to exhaust ourselves fighting the wicked. God has told us He will take care of that. He will fight our battles if we are on His side. When King Hezekiah faced insurmountable odds against the Assyrian army God proclaimed, “Be strong and courageous, be not afraid nor dismayed… for there be more with us than with him: With him is an arm of flesh; but with us is the Lord our God to help us, and to fight our battles.” (KJV 2 Chronicles 32:7)

We don’t need to fight harder. We need to fight smarter!

As my friend Marlene Peterson of Libraries of Hope so eloquently stated, “There’s only one way I know to dispel the darkness—turn on the light!”

We can’t sit in darkness and convince the darkness not to be dark. But we can eliminate the darkness by flooding it with light! That light must come from our homes, from our churches, and from our own hearts. Abraham Lincoln said, “The best way to predict your future is to create it.” So let’s create the future we want to see.

Home has become more vital than ever in teaching and nurturing the values and virtues that we hold dear.

Our children will be under siege—even more than before. This is a government ruling and government schools will be subject to it. The Supreme Court opened the floodgates for the same sex agenda in our children’s schools. The U.S. Department of Education made clear their intentions when they celebrated the court’s decision by adding a rainbow to their logo. There are definitely dark days ahead. This is trench warfare and if we don’t protect our trenches, we may lose our children. It is imperative that we teach our children the principles, values and virtues our nation was founded on. In these dark days we can absolutelynot afford to abdicate this responsibility to anyone else.

We would never dream of sending our children out in the dead of winter and depend on someone else to provide them with a coat and gloves. Why would we send them out in the cold world and expect someone else to teach them right and wrong?

I cannot express strongly enough the vital role that home and family plays in our nation. As C.E. Sargent proclaimed, “A nation is but a magnified home.” (C.E. Sargent, Our Home, 1888) If we want to know what the future will look like 20 years from now, look in the homes today. Deserting our home or neglecting our family is fatal to our nation!

Author Neal Maxwell cautioned that if we desert our child “in order to help defend civilization against the barbarians, we may well later meet, among the barbarians, [our] own neglected child. (Neal A. Maxwell, Wherefore Ye Must Press Forward, Deseret Book, 1977)

America is the last bastion of hope for the world. If the light of liberty and virtue is vanquished here, the entire earth will be filled with darkness. It doesn’t matter which way the world goes, it only matters which way we go.

We need to strengthen our homes, our families, and our churches. When we do, our light will shine like a floodlight dispelling darkness from the inside out.

There will be darker days ahead, but we need not fear. There is hope for America. It is you! God will fight our battles. The outcome is already there. We just need to decide which side we’re on. We need to turn up the light–in our own hearts and in our homes. We need to stand together, stand for truth, and spread goodness. That is how we will win this war. When the days seem dark and the odds insurmountable, remember we are not alone. There are more with us then there are with them.