The signers of the Declaration of Independence cited 27 injustices on the part of the King of England. It was about much more than just taxation without representation. I thank God for their courage, and for God’s blessing of the nation they forged.
Still, their efforts have not created a truly just government, because, after all it is a government of “We the People.” And where there are people there is injustice. No matter who holds power – the right, the left or the middle – there are abuses.
And by these abuses we are daily reminded of our frailty and of our need for the grace of God. Not that he would advance America over her neighbors, but rather that He would touch and change the hearts of her citizens so that we might reflect His love and His justice to those many neighbors across the world, and that we might truly be, as Winthrop put it, a “shining city on a hill.”
That shining city we are not now, nor by God’s standard have we ever really been. I thank God for the gift of freedom, and I pray that our best days are still yet ahead of us.
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