Buck Up, Special Dog!

It was quite a few years ago, maybe ten, while listening to Renewing Your Mind that R. C. Sproul dropped his guard for a moment and mentioned how some in the religious academic community had mockingly referred to him as Le folle (madman) Sproul or some similar disparagement.  A few years ago Rush Limbaugh had a similar weak moment although in his case thirty four million dollars a year may ease the pain somewhat. More recently South Carolina Senator Jim DeMint, openly displayed discouragement to radio talk show host Roger Hedgecock in that he, at times, felt all alone in the Senate in fighting the forces arrayed against our nation. Hedgecock responded Buck up man...we (the people of the United States) got your back and DeMint continues today to lead the charge in that formerly august body. At the complete opposite end of the spectrum there is me, I get dejected and dispirited at times too. Day after day and year after year of sounding a warning can take it out of you. I have given up so much for so long! I could be clubbing a small white ball and then motoring up to it in a little cart to club it even further. I could take a wall out of my house, or call someone to do it anyway, to make room for a giant television to stare into the pores of Katie Couric. I could be working on my abs, assuming they are under there somewhere. I could be Kung Fu dancing with a room full of hot chicks who recently dropped 120 pounds. I could have the Pittsburgh Steeler logo tattooed on the back of my neck.  I could wander aimlessly around the Jersey Shore for the summer hoping to get into a  fight with Snookie. I could take Yoga and learn to touch the top of my head with the back of my thigh. I could take an interest in vampires..all of them except Hillary of course. I could learn how to tweet; for instance right now I'd write My stomach just growled from that half bag a tortilla chips and jar of salsa I just ate, and forget Barack Obama, I'd want to see Suzanne Somers' birth certificate. But no, I have chosen to forgo all these pleasures. For what? For monitoring a measly totalitarian takeover of the world! And I'm the only one! Oh poor poor me :(  On a more serious note, and truer to the intent of this particular blog entry, one does have to fight discouragement, for the calamity that we see coming is unparalleled in American history.  There is no satisfaction in later being able to say we told you so. Winston Churchill was fortunate in that after subjecting himself to criticism verging on ridicule as he warned against the Nazis, he was able to lead his government, and the world for some time, in bringing Adolph Hitler to that dark bunker in Berlin in April of 1945. It is difficult seeing one's country, that one loves, lose its purpose, its essence, and the security that it once had in its might as it distances itself from, and even blames, the One who bestowed all of these blessings upon it. Churchill, in the second volume of his history of the Second World War wrote of Britain's malaise as Hitler built his war machine "Official responsibility rested upon the government of the time. But moral responsibilities were more widely spread."  I have personally given decades to the demise of this nation through self indulgence. Churchill also wrote (I am reading this volume, Their Finest Hour, right now and have his words at hand) that the British people had a remarkable unity when war was waged against them, "because everyone realized how near were death and ruin." And in his speech to the nation on May 13, 1939 he said "without victory, there is no survival. Let that be realized; no survival for the British Empire...."  Fortunately for the British there were far less distractions and far fewer toys than we have today, and they had an even greater ally in the wings that had not yet evicted God from its schools and its halls of power. We have no such ally but we have something far greater in a God who is merciful as He is just but if we do not desire Him as our Lord and as our Savior, He is as swift in judgement as He is fair.  So the message to myself, from myself, in this blog is buck up Special Dog...for there is no other choice. The encouragement is in knowing that if we fall, even this will ultimately be to His glory, and if we rise it will be to the glory of His name alone!.