Holding Up an Ideal Standard in a Complicated World

When trying to point people back to the Constitution as a standard and "rule book" for government, the biggest argument I get from those who say they support the Constitution is that, as a country, we've gone too far. We've made too many mistakes and now returning to that "idealistic" way of governing our country is unrealistic. Sure, it sounds good in theory, they say, but it won't work in our complicated world. The Founders never imagined the complicated mess we'd be in.

I've pondered on this for the last few days and an analogy came to mind. Imagine with me for a moment a young woman who has been raised in a broken home, has never been taught correct principles, and has made lots of mistakes. Perhaps she's gotten involved with a meth-lab boyfriend, has contracted an incurable STD, and is pregnant out of wedlock. She drops out of high school, has the baby, marries the meth-lab boyfriend, who then abuses her and makes her life pure misery.

Now, wouldn't you say this woman's choices for the future are limited? She's in bondage to a bad situation, is she not? She doesn't have a high school diploma, her chances for college are nil. Even if she leaves her loser husband, she'll have to support and raise her child on her own. If she ever wants to remarry she'll have to tell her future husband about her STD. 

Now, let's say you are a moral Christian and you come upon this young woman. She's broken-hearted, at the end of her rope, and humble enough to listen to you. Will you tell her all is lost? Will you tell her she'll never know happiness?

Or will you lift up a standard of the "ideal?" Will you teach her a standard of truth about God, families, forgiveness and redemption? Or will you tell her it's too late, so why bother?

I would hope you'd hold up a standard of truth to her and help her turn her life around through the atonement of Jesus Christ. Sure, she'll pay consequences for her previous choices. Yes, she'll have a hard road and prices to pay, but isn't redemption worth it? Isn't the happiness found on the other side of repentance immeasurably wonderful?

"And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free" John 8:32.

And so, while others may laugh and scoff at me for holding up an ideal standard for the proper role of government found in the U.S. Constitution, I hope they'll remember other "hopeless causes" that have been solved by God's grace. If Christ can heal a lost soul, if he can heal the blind, the deaf, and the lame, he can heal a nation and set her back on that fine highway of constitutional government.

And so I conclude with the words of the late, great American patriot, Congressman Larry McDonald of Georgia:

"The complexity of social organization does not change. Our technologically sophisticated industrial society is more complex than the agrarian society of America in the eighteenth century. In this regard, that was "a simpler world." But the complexities of politics (politics here meaning the science of governing) do not change much. The basic political problems confronting the Framers of our Constitution were as complex as our political problems today -- perhaps more so, because they were striking off into the dangerous unknown, whereas all we need do is return to the fine highway we were once on." (Georgia U.S. Congressman, Lawrence Patton McDonald, We Hold These Truths, p. 13, ‘76 Press, 1976)

Learn more about returning to that fine highway at www.ProConstitution.com

". . . where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty." 2 Corinthians 3:17