It is fairly easy to look back over history and see the good things and the bad things that various individuals have perpetrated over time. I just finished reading, “The Search for God and Guinness”, a biography of Arthur Guinness, the founder of the Guinness brewing company. Arthur was an incredibly loving, philanthropic and Christian man from mid-19th century Ireland. The book is an amazing history of the almost unbelievable good that Arthur did for his family, his workers, his town, his nation and the world.
With that book in mind, I began to wonder about the good deeds people do. We can look back and marvel and how much good the many people accomplish over time. We can look and see how they fulfilled the needs that were around them. The hard part is to look forward, from our own perspective and wonder how we can strive to accomplish something similar.
I think a large part of the answer lies in recognizing the actual needs of those around us. We can look back at the absolutely miserable living conditions of those persons in 19th century Dublin (for example from the Guinness book), and see that a real need was present. We can look at war torn regions of the world today and see a tangible need. But what about 21st century United States? We are going to have to look at the culture around us with historically Christian eyes and learn to discern. We must learn to know what life is supposed to be like and then respond with the tools and the passion to do something about it.
The greatest problem in the United States, in my very limited opinion, is that of complacency and comfort. Huge masses of people, comfortable and distracted, who do not even realize how spiritually bankrupt our nation has become.
We must respond.
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