Giving

My political opinions have really been flipped over the course of the past five years. It will be interesting to see how different my perceptions will be the next time we have a Republican president in power. I'm not sure whether I will get upset less frequently, or about the same.

None of this is about political party to me. I perceive that from an economic standpoint, we need a more balanced, common sense approach to resolve the problems that assail us. Yet neither party seems willing to acknowledge that. We are living in a time and land that is deficient in  common sense and in which money dictates the majority of decisions made.

There is a place in our government for social programs; yet just like most any thing that man gets his hands on, these have gone to an extreme in our system. Most of us know of situations in which there are injustices in this area, in which people are playing the system and getting by with it.

This is enough to make people angry and cynical, and less apt to give to those who are really in need.

Yet the fact remains that there are needs still being unmet, children who didn't have dinner last night, and elderly people who don't have enough money to pay their light bills or buy groceries.

Government is a mechanism through which needs can be met, but because of its impersonal nature, it cannot begin to touch the heart of the matter. As the amount of taxpayer money spent to "benefit" the poor increases, the more the average person is apt to hold onto to his earnings with both hands, refusing to help even family members in need, or to 'love his neighbor as his self' as the gospel commands.

As a result of this, "the ties that bind" us all together in families and communities have been severed.

As people are subjected to excessive taxation to the end of supporting programs that they don't agree with, their concern for the collective "we" diminishes, and their esteem for the all-important "me" reigns supreme.

The cost to family and society as a whole is immeasurable. The more dependent we become on big government, the less we rely on each other. Our lives become more compartmentalized and our concerns rarely extend beyond the walls of our own homes.

The only thing I know to do is to give anyway. We need not grow cynical. Love anyway. Go against society's flow of selfishness and self preservation, and be generous with what you've been given. God's commands do not change no matter how much government and societal whims do.

"Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt , and where thieves break through and steal : but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal : For where your treasure is , there will your heart be also." (Matthew 6:19-21)

Obey Him in all situations, and He will bring the harvest.