Why Would Anybody Want to be an American?

I originally posted this blog in July of 2011. As we approach the Fourth of July this year, I chose to repost it to remind us why nearly everyone wants to be an American.  Have a wonderful Fourth and remember to count your blessings.

A few months ago I heard about an East Indian man who was asked why he had chosen to live in America. He replied, “I wanted to live in a country where the poor people are fat.” I cannot imagine any American-born citizen ever giving this response because it is so removed from our way of thinking. However, I believe that we can gain some very good insights about the advantages of American citizenship by listening to those who have just been awarded the privilege.

Over the last couple of years we have heard some of our best-known politicians and religious leaders apologize for America. They have proclaimed that we are to blame for most of the world’s ills. Whether it is AIDS in Africa or the consumption of too many natural resources, America is to blame. We are told that we are a greedy, selfish, spoiled, pampered and altogether bad people who owe the world an apology; they then add insult to injury by offering an apology on our behalf. I, for one, am tired of being vilified by these men who have received so much from what is undeniably the greatest country on earth.

I was very interested, therefore, this past Monday on July 4 when I saw that CNN was interviewing some of America’s newest citizens who had only that day been sworn in at ceremonies held in cities all over the United States.  I was surprised to discover that an inordinate number of them held doctorate degrees and could have made a good living almost anywhere in the world. They had not chosen America because they were “poor immigrants” who hoped for an opportunity to leave poverty and squalor behind. They had chosen America for reasons far beyond the dream of becoming rich.

One man from Iraq said that after he had been in this country for only a few weeks he saw someone walking his dog. The dog was wearing socks, and the Iraqi asked the dog’s owner why he had put socks on his dog. The owner replied that the sidewalk was hot and the socks would keep the dog’s feet from being uncomfortable.

The Iraqi was astonished. He said that he could not imagine living in a country where people wanted even their animals to be comfortable. He finished by saying, “People would rather be a dog in America than a human in Iraq.”

A Nigerian man who has his PhD said that he had wanted to become an American citizen because in his country people do not even have clean water. He said that he wished Americans would travel to other countries and see the way the rest of the world lives so that “we would appreciate what God has given to this country.”

Yes, God has blessed America far beyond anything that anyone could have dreamed of 235 years ago.  As a result, we owe Him a great deal. Because we have been given much, much is required of us, and most of the time we have done pretty well as a nation in responding to problems in the rest of the world. We are, by far, the leader in sending missionaries to other parts of the world. We have given trillions of dollars in foreign aid, and we are the first to send relief in times of natural disasters. We are a giving, generous people.

God has blessed us, and we, in turn, have blessed others. I hope that anyone who has ever felt guilty because America has so much will remember from whence those blessings came. We must always acknowledge that God is the author of our story, and we must always live our lives to honor Him and to show others the same kindness and generosity that He continues to show us.

People who have lived without clean water, sufficient food and a just system of government know exactly why they chose to come to America. You never have to ask the guy who would rather be a dog in this country than a human in the country from which he came, “Why would anyone want to be an American?

Joyce Swann is a nationally-known author and speaker. Her own story of teaching her ten children from the first grade through master’s degrees before their seventeenth birthdays is retold in her book,Looking Backward: My Twenty-Five Years as a Homeschooling Mother.   Her newest novel, The Warrior, is available on Kindle and in paperback.  For more information visit her website at http://www.frontier2000.net/ or like her on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/frontier2000mediagroup

What Can a Grandparent Do?

Whenever I speak to audiences, I usually have at least one person who approaches me afterward to ask what grandparents can do to ensure that their grandchildren will grow up with Christian values. Many of these grandparents say that their children are not serving God and are not taking the grandchildren to church or teaching them Christian principles. 

On Mother’s Day, once again, a man approached me with this question. He said that he had been very careful to hold the line in his own household and to make certain that Christ was honored there. He then added that he was worried about his grandchildren but did not know what to do to help them.

“I don’t have authority in my son’s house,” he said sadly. “I feel helpless because I know that my grandchildren need to be taught about Christ, but the only time I can influence them is when they come to my house.”

This grandfather is exactly right; he cannot change what goes on in his son’s home, but he can influence his grandchildren. As we stood in the back of the sanctuary after the service, I shared with him the following story that I hope will be helpful to other grandparents who are facing this dilemma:

The first week in April of this year I visited my soon to be ninety-one-year-old mother who lives in a small Kansas town a few miles from the Missouri border. Because I was not raised there, I have never met many of my relatives, but when I visited this year, two of my female cousins drove down from neighboring towns to meet me.

As we talked, one of my cousins, who is more than twenty years younger than I, told me about having made a commitment to Christ nine years ago. She added that she had made a lot of bad choices and had gone through some very difficult times before she became a Christian. She then went on to say that the home where she was raised was “horribly dysfunctional” and that her parents had set a very bad example for her and her brother.

I was curious about what caused her to change her life. She was already in her thirties when she accepted Christ as her Savior, and I knew there had to be something that she could point to and say, “This thing caused me to face the truth about who I was and what I needed in my life.”

What she shared with me should bring hope to all grandparents who are grieving because their grandchildren are not being raised in Christian homes. She said, “I had two sets of good Christian grandparents, and they really influenced me.”

I, of course, shared one of those sets of grandparents, and I can tell you that my cousin was absolutely correct about their Christian example. I never heard either of my mother’s parents criticize anything their grown children did, but they lived their lives in such an exemplary manner that they were loved and adored by all fifteen of their grandchildren. I never saw either of them say or do anything that would dishonor Christ in any way. They were church-going, Bible-reading believers whose lives spoke to everyone around them. They did not compromise—my own father was such a reprobate that he was finally banned from entering their house, but, even then, they never said one negative word to me or my siblings about him. I knew that they expected the best from me, but I was never put in a position where I felt guilty about or embarrassed by my father’s bad actions.

Through talking with my cousin, I was reminded that grandparents have an enormous influence on their grandchildren. It is our duty to set a good example and tell them about Jesus’ love for them. If we live in close proximity, we can take them to church with us. We can tell them about Jesus both with our lips and with our lives.

We cannot change what goes on in our grown children’s homes, but we can control what goes on in ours. We can show some “tough love” when the occasion calls for it, and we can show “gentle love” the rest of the time. But the most important thing that we can do is set an example that will endure so that when our grandchildren are grown, they will remember how we lived and say, “That’s what I want for my life.”

Joyce Swann is a nationally-known author and speaker. Her own story of teaching her ten children from the first grade through master’s degrees before their seventeenth birthdays is retold in her book, Looking Backward: My Twenty-Five Years as a Homeschooling Mother.   Her newest novel, The Warrior, will be released June 1, 2012. For more information visit her website at http://www.frontier2000.net/ or like her on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/frontier2000mediagroup

When a Slave Becomes a Prince

Can you imagine the horror of having the government order you to murder your baby by throwing it into a crocodile-infested river? That is exactly what happened to the Jewish mothers who were slaves in Egypt. At birth their male children were snatched from them and fed to the Nile.

Then along came a Jewish slave couple named Amram and Jochebed. They already had children, and their son Aaron was old enough not to be subject to Pharaoh’s order. However, Jochebed gave birth to another son during the time that the Pharaoh’s edict was in force, and when she saw that he was an unusually beautiful child, she refused to obey. Hebrews 11:23 tells us that Moses’ parents ‘trusted that God would save him from the death the king commanded, and they hid him for three months, and were not afraid.”

When Moses was three months old, his parents realized that they could no longer hide him, and Jochebed made him a little boat from papyrus reeds and waterproofed it with tar. She then set the basket on the Nile River—the same river that Pharaoh had commanded that all the male children be thrown into.

What emotions did Jochebed experience when she saw her little son float away into the crocodile infested waters? The Bible does not say, but as a mother, I can imagine the grief and dread that she must have experienced at that moment. I believe that this act required more faith than she had exhibited during the entire previous three months. Prior to placing her son in the water, she had maintained some control over the situation, but in that act she had relinquished any ability to manipulate the situation or impact the outcome.

Apparently, Jochebed had no idea what would happen to her baby boy because she instructed his sister Miriam to watch the little boat and report back to her what happened to it. She put her faith in God, entrusted her son to Him, and walked away.

What Jochebed did not know was that her actions had set into motion forces that would alter the future of the entire Jewish race. The baby Moses entered the Nile as a slave, but, for all practical purposes, the slave child died there because moments later he was drawn out as a prince of Egypt who would one day become the deliverer of the Jewish people.

This story is a wonderful illustration of what happens to the man or woman who accepts Christ as his or her savior and follows that conversion experience with baptism.

Most of us come to Christ because of someone else’s faith. While we are still living under the death sentence that sin imposes upon all mankind, someone comes along who sees someone beautiful in us and tells us about Jesus Christ’s saving power.

After a time, however, we must stop depending on their relationship with God and find what He has for us. When we determine that we want to be baptized, we enter the water as slaves to sin and death, but our old nature dies there, and we are drawn out of the water as children of the King.

We then have the privilege of becoming a deliverer to others who are slaves to sin. Only Christ can forgive them and take away their sin, but we can tell them about Him and share the wonderful things He has done in our lives. We can look into the faces of all those living under the sentence of sin and death and see the beauty that is theirs in Christ. We can have a small part in helping them make the transition from slave to child of the king.

Joyce Swann is a nationally-known author and speaker. Her book, Looking Backward: My Twenty-Five Years as a Homeschooling Mother recounts her own years teaching her ten children from the first grade through master's degrees before their seventeenth birthdays.  For more information, visit her website at http://www.frontier2000.net/ or like her on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/frontier2000mediagroup.