Duty to Vote
by Sharon L. Reidenbach
By Sharon L. Reidenbach
What happened to the glorious and dramatic
events we like to think
influenced who we’ve become? What if it were a
mere comma? Or fear
that redirected out life’s meaning?
For example, our Pledge of Allegiance to the
flag is nothing like
the Christian Socialist, Francis Bellamy wrote in
August in 1892. “In
the 1950’s, through the fear of Communism, the
word ‘God’ was inserted
to the Pledge thinking America would be
protected”!
Then the biggest, and final change came
through the rules of
grammar! Congress wanted the comma placed after
the word God, not
Nation, making the phrase one thought, and that
officially we were
indeed a country founded on a belief in God! The
Pledge had become
both a patriotic oath, and a public prayer! This
wasn’t what the
revolutionist had in mind, nor Bellamy.
And there is another flag the Lord influenced.
It is the oldest
unchanged, free flag in the world, The Christian
flag. It has no
earthly bonds or allegiances, but to Christ. It
exists for the world’s
people regardless of sex, race, national,
boundary, economic
condition, affluence, or poverty, politics,
slavery or freedom.
Yet, its conception wasn’t celestial! On
September 26, 1897,
Charles C. Overton, the Sunday school
superintendent, had to fill in
for a no-show guest speaker. He groped for
something to say, spied the
American flag and talked about symbolism. During
his speech he
proposed Christians should have their own flag. In
1907 he and Ralph
Diffendorfer, secretary to the Methodist Young
People’s Missionary
movement, produced and promoted the Christian
flag. But Lynn Harold
Hough wrote the first pledge after hearing
Diffendorfer talk about the
flag.
Yes, we are a people who love the spectacular,
and heavenly
revelations. But God isn’t the god of the
spectacular.
Rather, like with our life, He weaved His will
into our patriotic
Pledge, and into the Christian flag through a
socialist, fear, a
comma, a substitute speaker and two men. It’s the
content that gives
meaning to liberty and life, not the process.
I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United
States of America,
and to the Republic for which it stands. One
nation under God,
indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
I pledge allegiance to the Christian Flag and
to the Savior for
whose Kingdom it stands. One Savior, crucified,
risen, and coming
again with life and liberty to all who believe.
God reminds us He’s at work using the small
and unusual to bring
about the final results glorifying Him. He’ll use
any means for the
greater good: 5 small stones, a teenage girl, a
small boy’s lunch;
size is not important. However we are suffering,
be encouraged, He is
behind the scene working for us. Perhaps changing
our life with a
comma!
“What is that in your hand?” And he [Moses]
said, “A staff”
(Exodus 4:2): And he led a nation.
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