zdravstvuj (Hello!)

A long time ago, three friends and I had packed in a 1969 Chevrolet Nova and went to see our baseball team at Three Rivers Stadium. The Pirates were losing by three or four runs in the top of the ninth and the driver wanted to leave early and beat the traffic. We were on the bridge from the Northside into Pittsburgh when The Great One, Roberto Clemente, started the bottom of the ninth inning with a single. I had the driver stop the car and ran back into the stadium to see the Pirates come back and win the game. I may have had more than my share of losing but running out that last ground ball was never an option. Someone once asked Martin Luther what he would do if he knew for sure that Jesus Christ would return the next day. His answer was that he would plant a tree. It is surely a God-given gift that mankind, particularly His people, always have something to do, something to strive for, something to hope and pray for. The Achilles Heel of America is that many of its people have felt too secure for too long. It's a common human trait and similar to how the barbarians conquered Rome. Where sports was once an obsession of mine, today it almost totally consists of opening the sports page of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review as I pull into the drive-thru at McDonald's at 6 AM each  weekday morning and read the sports until my Big Breakfast and senior coffee with one cream is passed through the window to me. I can honestly say that I enjoy sports today more than when I sat in the bleachers or in front of the television set for hours on end. Surely if everyone was like me there would be no obscene $100 million dollar contracts, but admittedly there might also be no professional teams at all. Today I give the majority of that brief time to the Pittsburgh Penguins hockey team. By that I mean twenty minutes here and there and an occasional playoff game. By far, Russia has the most visitors to this blog, twice as many as the next country in hits, and Russians know their hockey! Our Penguins were the favorite to win the Stanley Cup this year but are down 3 games to none to the Philadelphia Flyers. I was in an elevator the other day with  a gentleman who spoke with a heavy mountain twang. I said "Nice day today!' He responded "Good day for the fly'rs." He didn't seem to be an average hockey fan but I came back, "I root for the Penguins" to which he replied, "The fly'rs!...Good day to grow the fly'rs." Even down 3 to nothing, true Penguin fans will not give up, but on the infinitely more important things in life we cannot give up either. On the surface...America has had it. There is no longer an American Creed to unite us. It's every man for himself and every group for themselves. Our youth waste their time on Facebook, we sit glued to the television screen with offerings like Dancing With The Stars, half of us hoard money in our 401s while the other half will never see a 401, we are a violent society and have come to exchange the sure blessings of hard work for the proven false claims of Socialism where we expect the government to take care of us. We shake our heads at the constant stream of violence in the news but are oblivious to the violence saturating our entertainment as it in turn affects our youth. Most deplorable of all, we say to God "Walk a little father behind me there God. I got a reputation to uphold." Mitt Romney's campaign recently stated that it would take "some sort of act of God" to keep Romney from winning the nomination. I heard that and took heart for it certainly is a true statement, for only an act of God can awaken America! I have asked before in this blog to my international visitors (friends) that if we (America) go down..."how will you retain any freedoms at all?".  As weak as we appear, indeed as weak as we are in many ways, we have not given up as evidenced by an incredible military as honorable as any we have ever had, tens of millions of Americans who are on their knees every day petitioning God for mercies and a core in our government who have not sold out to the elites.  In our Revolutionary War, John Paul Jones captained a burning Bonhomme Richard but responded to the captain of the British  ship Serapis with..." I have not yet begun to fight." For their part, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill prodded his people with these words, "Never give in, never give in, never; never; never; never-in nothing, great or small, large or petty-never give in except to convictions of honor and good sense." My encouragement to you in Russia comes from Benjamin Franklin, one of our Founding Fathers who although he did not know Christ neither did he attack His person. He could not but acknowledge the following at our Constitutional Convention, "Sir, a long time, and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth-that God governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without his notice, is it probable that an Empire can rise without his aid?" We may be far apart, you and I, in miles but not as human beings. Pray for us in America, not only that we expel the communists in our midst and not only that we stop seeking happiness in material possessions but that we humble ourselves before Almighty God, that we seek His glory and not our own and that we might, once again, be a source of stability in a world hell-bent for destruction. And if I might pray for you it would be that the Gospel of Jesus Christ moves mightily across your land with a power that no government can stop, hinder or even delay, that you can learn from our mistakes and that through your faithfulness to Christ you can encourage us even as we hope to encourage you!!!