Plan...As If God Will Have Mercy

I had an opportunity to stop by a college campus today, buy a few things at the bookstore and leave a few items around with this blog's URL on it hoping that some of the students might be inquisitive enough to stop by. When I get these opportunities I like to immediately write directly to those students. It's not the same world as only a few decades ago. Economies functioned normally then. One could choose any profession and do their very best. Sure there was greed in the marketplace and ethics violations everywhere but the perpetrators thereof didn't flaunt their vanities as they do today nor require submission to them. To make matters worse politics has unabashedly bullied industry after industry none more so than the EPA and electric power industry. Want to be a teacher... a lawyer... a doctor...it's a whole new ballgame today often requiring turning a blind eye to the creeds of those professions. My advice is the same that I give to our son. Your future depends on where this conflict in American culture goes. George McGovern just died and I would not use the word liberal in this blog in reference to what he believed, rather it would pertain to the the liberal of today who lives on the soundbite, who can easily don a Che' tee shirt, who pooh poohs the word communist without a care of what it really means. The adjective engaged can be used in many ways. Many of you may already have it in the back of your minds as in a pledge to marry but it also means, as Merriam-Webster puts it, "involved especially in a hostile encounter." Both sides in this ideological conflict today are already deeply engaged and the battles are mostly fought in the courts, under the Capitol rotunda and in the polling booth. Where this battle ends up will affect you. If the liberal or progressive wins it will be difficult for you, at least those of you at this particular college I visited today for ethics and honor are highly valued and taught. I don't claim to know what the outcome will be. God will either have mercy upon us as we return to Him or he will judge us. Here is my advice: pray for the former, prepare for the latter, but plan for God's mercy in restoring us to what we were once perceived to be. Become engaged yourself ....on your knees in prayer.  You don't want success in the alternative outcome, for you would not be able to take joy in it. You may still be looking for that profession, for that area to build your life upon. Dedicate it to God before you even know what it is.  Make plans that will bring glory to God even though today there is not a great call for plans as such. Should we as a people and as a nation humble ourselves before Him you will be prepared. You may not realize this now but you, should God have mercy upon us, will be the backbone of our nation; the responsibility is coming your way. Don't be unprepared, don't be caught unawares when it is your time. Make every moment count. Be thankful for the education before you. Be acutely aware of the temptations of peer pressure. Be a leader in your generation and resolve always and for ever to give all the glory to God who knows the numbers of hairs on your head, knows your beginnings and your ending and calls you over the cacophony of sounds that endanger even the best of colleges.