Does America Still Have a Heart?

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America has an oversized head in Washington and a loud, morally broken culture that entertains us. They speak the most, demand the most attention, and control the narrative, yet they do not represent the heart of America. The real question is not whether America has a heart, but where that heart lives.
The heart of America lives in the people who are tired of a bloated, out-of-touch government and an entertainment culture built on hypocrisy and moral decay. Both ends talk loudly, demand much, and accept little responsibility, while refusing to admit what is slowly destroying this country.
The heart of America is made up of God-fearing, hard-working, tax-paying families. These are independent people—builders, workers, small business owners, entrepreneurs, and legal immigrants—who believe in personal responsibility, integrity, and freedom. They produce, they contribute, and they carry the real weight of the nation. What is disappearing in Washington and Hollywood still lives strong in the heart of America.
That heart is beating fast today, with righteous anger and clear resolve. United by common sense, Americans voted for Donald Trump because they wanted leadership that would defend the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and the Declaration of Independence, foundations that have been under steady attack from both ends of America.
“Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”
— John Adams
Without the heart of America, neither Washington nor Hollywood can survive. Power and influence mean nothing without the people who build, pay, serve, and sacrifice.
Whether people like it or not, God has always been the source of America’s strength. The God of our Founding Fathers is the same God worshiped by those who make up the heart of this nation today. Without a strong and moral heart, America will become just another dark, depleted country ruled by self-interest and corruption.
The future of America will not be decided in Washington or on a screen. It will be decided by the strength, courage, and faith of its heart. If the heart stands, America lives. If the heart fails, America falls. The choice is not complicated, but it is urgent. Guard the heart. Strengthen the heart. Hold leaders accountable. Pray without ceasing. America’s survival depends on it.

Isaiah 5:20–24 Warning over America

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Isaiah warned of a people who would call evil good and good evil, turn light into darkness and darkness into light, excuse the guilty, punish the innocent, and reject the law of the Lord. He said sorrow would follow—not as a threat, but as the natural result of living against truth.
That warning now hangs over America.
The liberal left, expressed through woke ideology, does not simply argue with biblical truth—it seeks to replace it. Truth is treated as flexible. Morality becomes personal. Feelings outrank facts. God’s order is pushed aside and labeled harmful or outdated. The belief is simple: if enough people accept the lie, the lie becomes the new truth.
They also understand something important: truth is carried by people. The vessel is not an institution or a tradition. The vessel is a person. So the attack is personal. They search the past, expose failure, magnify weakness, and say to anyone who speaks truth, “How can you say this? Look at your life.” The goal is not correction—it is silence. If the messenger can be discredited, the message can be dismissed.
And they are right about one thing. We are damaged. Our failures and sins can make the truth harder to hear. A broken life can weaken how a message is received. That damage is real. But it does not change the truth.
As George Orwell warned, “In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.”
Truth does not depend on the perfection of the messenger. Even when the vessel is cracked, the truth it carries remains whole. God’s Word stands on its own authority, not on the credibility of fallen people.
When a society believes a lie instead of the truth, the cost is severe. Right and wrong blur until justice loses meaning. Accountability fades, and power grows unchecked. Identity fractures, leaving confusion where purpose once stood. Families weaken as responsibility and truth are redefined. Freedom shrinks, because lies must be enforced to survive. What remains is sorrow—slow, deep, and generational.
A society that lives by truth looks different. Truth brings clarity. Justice protects the innocent. Accountability builds trust. Identity is rooted in something stable and enduring. Families grow stronger. Freedom expands, because truth does not need force to stand. Hope remains, because life aligns with the way God designed it to work.
So the challenge is simple: STAND. Stand without reshaping truth to gain approval. Stand knowing you are imperfect. Stand without fear or retreat. Scripture never called believers to be flawless—it called them to be faithful.
Isaiah’s warning still stands. When truth is rejected, sorrow follows. Not because truth failed—but because it was abandoned.

United States of America

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The first word matters most—United. It comes first because everything else depends on it. America was never built on perfect agreement, but on a shared decision to remain one people even while disagreeing. Unity was the foundation. Without it, nothing else stands.
America is dividing, not because we disagree, but because we have forgotten how to work through disagreement without turning on one another. When people stop seeing each other as part of the same house, every difference becomes a threat. Every argument becomes a fight. Unity does not shatter all at once—it cracks slowly.
Jesus warned that a house divided against itself cannot stand. Houses do not collapse overnight. Trust erodes. Listening stops. Restraint disappears. Eventually, the structure can no longer carry its own weight. That is how nations fall—not suddenly, but steadily.
Our forefathers understood this danger.
They argued fiercely. Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson clashed over power and authority. Large states and small states nearly tore the Constitutional Convention apart. Voices were raised. Tempers flared. Yet they stayed. They refused to leave the room. They worked through the issues instead of walking away from them.
Benjamin Franklin saw how close they were to failure and spoke plainly:
“We must, indeed, all hang together or, most assuredly, we shall all hang separately.”
Unity was not idealism. It was survival.
That truth still holds.
Today, a loud minority appears powerful because division gives them a stage. Anger spreads faster than wisdom. Outrage is rewarded. Fear keeps people reacting instead of thinking. But their influence only exists when the majority is divided.
When Americans stand united—calm, grounded, and unwilling to be manipulated—the loud minority loses its power. Division is their fuel. Unity takes away their oxygen.
Unity does not mean ignoring problems. It means facing them together.
We must first seek what we agree on. Most Americans agree on more than they admit—safety, fairness, opportunity, dignity, and freedom. From that shared ground, we must work through what we do not agree on, patiently and honestly, instead of turning disagreement into warfare.
If working through our problems means changing laws, then we must be willing to change laws. If it means ending lifetime membership in Congress so power does not harden and disconnect from the people, then we must be willing to do that. If it means demanding media that reports facts instead of pushing agendas, then we must insist on it. If it means choosing to see the good in people instead of assuming the worst, then that choice must begin with us.
This is how unity is rebuilt—not through demands, but through responsibility.
A united people does not shout louder. It listens longer. It does not erase disagreement. It works through it. When Americans refuse to be pulled apart, the extremes fade, the middle regains its voice, and the nation steadies itself.
If America remains divided, the future is clear. Trust will continue to collapse. Freedom will shrink as fear demands control. The nation will weaken at home and lose credibility in the world.
But if America chooses unity, the future looks different. Stability returns. Strength replaces outrage. Extremes lose influence. The world sees a nation capable of governing itself without tearing itself apart.
So what is the goal for America?
It is not perfection. It is not total agreement. It is responsibility—freedom guided by conscience, restrained by law, and protected by unity.
A divided house falls because everyone pulls in different directions.
A united house stands because its people choose restraint over reaction and commitment over control.
The power of the word United is not found in silence or sameness. It is found in a people willing to seek common ground, work through hard differences, and hold the house together.
That choice is before us now.

What Lies on the Other Side

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A while back, a good friend of mine died from cancer. A few days before his death, I visited him in the hospital, where he shared a dream with me—one that has stayed with me and continues to shape how I understand fear and faith.
In his dream, he saw Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, praying. Jesus was there because He knew what was coming. He knew betrayal was near. He knew soldiers would soon seize Him, bind Him, mock Him, and strike Him. He knew the whips, the crown of thorns, the nails, and the cross all awaited Him. As a man, He felt the full weight of that knowledge. His body recoiled at the pain He knew He would endure. His heart carried the sorrow of being abandoned by those He loved. His soul bore the burden of taking on the sin of others. The garden was where His humanity fully faced the cost of obedience.
As Jesus prayed, He stopped, looked at my friend, and said, “Would you join Me in prayer?” My friend, sensing the holiness and gravity of the moment, replied, “I am not holy enough to be in this place with You.” Jesus did not argue with him. Instead, He asked a question that went beyond healing and into the heart of faith: “What if I do not heal you?”
That question revealed what the garden was really about. Jesus was not praying to escape suffering; He was preparing His heart to endure it. In the garden, His flesh felt fear and dread, but His spirit chose surrender. He was able to bear what was coming because He knew what lay beyond it. He knew that on the other side of the pain was redemption—freedom for the lost, forgiveness for sinners, and life for many. The suffering was real, but it was not meaningless. Love, not force, carried Him forward.
In the dream, my friend chose to step into the garden. He did not step in with certainty or strength, but with trust. Faith was no longer defined by healing or outcomes. Faith meant choosing to remain with Jesus, even when the cost was unknown.
As I reflect on that dream, I realize how much I am still learning. I have often believed, without admitting it, that faith should protect me from the hardest valleys. But Jesus did not avoid the valley. He entered it fully aware of what awaited Him, because He could see beyond it. Prayer did not remove the suffering; it anchored Him to the purpose on the other side of it.
Fear enters my life in much the same way—through the pull of the flesh toward comfort, control, and escape. Like Jesus, I want the pain to pass. But the garden teaches me that fear loosens its grip when I lift my eyes beyond the moment. When suffering is seen only for what it costs, it overwhelms us. When it is seen in light of what God is accomplishing, it can be endured.
“Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for You are with me.”
Jesus left the garden knowing His body would be broken, yet His spirit was settled. He rose to meet the soldiers because He knew the cross was not the end of the story. He could bear the pain because He knew what waited on the other side—resurrection, restoration, and redemption accomplished.
I am learning that when fear rises, I must go to my garden and pray—to surrender even when understanding has not yet come. I am learning that what I fear is not settled by escape, but in prayer, where my flesh slowly yields to trust in the One who holds all of my tomorrows.

When Belief Becomes Life

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Many people know about Jesus. They have heard His name, listened to sermons, and learned stories from the Bible. They may believe He lived, taught, and died on the cross. They may even agree that everything they hear about Him is true. But knowing about Jesus is not the same as knowing Him. Knowing about Jesus is knowledge. Knowing Jesus is relationship.
I was reminded of this during a conversation with Carol as we talked about what salvation really means. We talked about how often people confuse knowledge with relationship. It helped to think about how God created us. We are made of body, soul, and spirit. The body is physical. The soul is the mind, where we think and reason. Many people believe in Jesus at this level. They say they believe because it makes sense. Their mind accepts the truth about Jesus, but belief that stays in the mind is still only knowledge.
At some point, a deeper realization must happen. A person comes to understand that knowing facts about Jesus is not enough, and that eternity with Him does not come through knowledge, effort, or good behavior. It comes only through salvation.
Salvation is when I ask the Holy Spirit into my life. It is the moment I stop standing outside and invite God to live within me. It is not just agreeing that Jesus is real. It is trusting Him, asking for forgiveness, and surrendering control of my life to Him. This is what Romans chapter ten describes when it says we are saved by believing in our heart and confessing Jesus as Lord. Salvation is not a thought. It is a response.
This is the moment a relationship with Jesus begins. At salvation, Jesus is no longer someone I know about. He becomes someone I know personally. Faith moves from the mind into the spirit. Knowledge becomes relationship.
From that moment forward, the relationship grows. Prayer becomes conversation. Scripture becomes personal. Life begins to change from the inside out, not because of rules, but because Jesus is now living within me.
A relationship with Jesus cannot be borrowed or learned secondhand. It begins with salvation and continues through daily walking with Him. Knowing about Jesus is information. Asking the Holy Spirit into my life is relationship.
In the end, the difference is simple. Before salvation, Jesus is someone I know about. After salvation, He is someone I live with. That is when belief becomes life—now and for eternity.

Respect

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I had a conversation with a young woman I have known her entire life. Her view of what is happening in America is very different from mine. I did not enter the conversation trying to make a statement or provoke a reaction. I was simply talking, believing that two people could disagree and still treat each other with dignity. I shared my views honestly and calmly. When the conversation ended, something unexpected happened. Because she did not like what I said, she withdrew what she called “respect.” That moment stopped me, not because we disagreed, but because of what her response revealed about how respect is being redefined in our culture.
That exchange brought clarity. If respect disappears the moment someone challenges your beliefs, then it was never respect at all. It was approval, given only as long as there was agreement. True respect does not require agreement. It requires restraint. It means allowing another person to speak without punishment. As Voltaire is often credited with saying, “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” That understanding once stood at the center of honest conversation in a free society.
Respect cannot be earned through conformity, because if it could, every person we meet would become a standard we must meet. One set of expectations would cancel out another, forcing us to change who we are just to be treated with basic dignity. That is not respect. That is control. Respect, properly understood, is given because a person is human, not because their opinions are acceptable. When respect becomes conditional, honesty becomes dangerous and truth becomes something to hide.
Scripture draws this line clearly. In Acts chapter fifteen, Paul and Barnabas had such a sharp disagreement over John Mark that they separated and went different ways. The Bible uses the word paroxysmos to describe their conflict, meaning a strong or intense disagreement. Yet Scripture does not suggest they sinned by disagreeing or lost respect for one another. That same word, paroxysmos, appears again in Hebrews chapter ten, where believers are instructed to stir one another toward love and good works. The same word used for conflict is also used for sharpening. Disagreement, when guided by truth and restraint, is not destructive. It is refining.
Trust, however, is different. Trust must be earned through consistency and character over time. Someone may decide they do not trust me because they disagree with my views, and that is their right. But withdrawing respect because of disagreement is not moral clarity. It is an attempt to silence. When people say, “I no longer respect you,” what they often mean is, “You no longer affirm me.” At that point, conversation ends and division takes its place.
A society that confuses respect with agreement will eventually demand silence instead of dialogue and conformity instead of character. Scripture and history both remind us that truth is often sharpened through tension, not erased by it. Respect is given. Trust is earned. Disagreement, when handled rightly, is not a threat to truth, but one of the ways God uses it to refine us.

The Forgotten Word

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One evening I found myself reading words written nearly two hundred and fifty years ago, yet they felt as if they were speaking directly into our time. “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with inherent and inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” I stopped there, my eyes resting on one word—pursuit. Not happiness itself, but the pursuit of it. That word carries meaning we seem to have forgotten. To pursue something means to work for it, to risk failure, to accept responsibility for your choices, good or bad. It means sacrifice. Our founders understood this. Happiness was never meant to be handed to us by government. It was something earned through effort, discipline, and perseverance.
As I thought about the world around me, it became clear that the idea of pursuit has slowly been erased. Many people today believe it is the government’s job to give them whatever makes them happy. They’ve been taught this way of thinking by leaders and by media that reward outrage and entitlement. When they are unhappy, they don’t look at their own choices. They demand. They protest. They rebel. They expect others to sacrifice so they can be comfortable. Laws are ignored. The rights of others are dismissed. The loudest voices claim moral authority without accepting moral responsibility.
Later in the Declaration, Jefferson wrote that governments exist to secure our rights, and that they only hold power because the people allow it. He also wrote that when a government becomes destructive to those rights, it is the people’s right to change or remove it. That sentence no longer feels like distant history. Our rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are being stripped away, not all at once, but piece by piece. The pursuit of happiness has been twisted into a promise of happiness without effort, without accountability, and without sacrifice.
Our forefathers lived differently. They worked hard, endured hardship, and put their families and communities before themselves. They didn’t demand comfort. They built it. They understood that freedom costs something and that someone always pays the price. Somewhere along the way, we became so focused on collecting possessions and chasing pleasure that we lost sight of what it takes to defend true freedom and to seek the good of all people, not just ourselves.
We still have a choice. We still have the means. We still have the power. But power unused is power lost. If we continue to trade responsibility for entitlement and sacrifice for convenience, then freedom will not be taken from us—it will be surrendered. A nation does not fall in a moment; it erodes when its people forget who they are and what they are willing to stand for.
This is not a warning meant to divide, but a call to awaken. Freedom survives only when ordinary people choose to pursue it, protect it, and pass it on. If we fail to do that now, then history will not ask what our government did to us. It will ask what we were willing—or unwilling—to do to keep America free.

Outrage Is Not Evidence

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Over the past week, and really over the past year, as we have listened to the news and talked with people, one thing has become clear: emotion is driving much of our national conversation. Anger, fear, and outrage dominate what we hear. Reactions are immediate and intense. Feelings are loud. That leads to a basic question worth asking: does the law operate on emotion?
It does not. The law exists because emotion is unstable. Feelings change quickly, but facts do not. Laws are meant to be built on evidence, process, and restraint, not on how strongly something feels in the moment. Emotion can express pain or grief, but it cannot define truth. Justice depends on facts.
That difference has been lost in the recent killing of a woman during an Immigration and Customs Enforcement operation in the Twin Cities. Before the facts were fully known, emotion took control of the narrative. Media outlets rushed to fill airtime. Special interest groups rushed to frame conclusions. Stories hardened while investigations were still unfolding. Outrage moved faster than evidence, and reaction replaced patience.
Grief after a death is natural. Emotion is human. But a deeper question must be asked: who benefits when emotion is continually stirred and sustained? Emotion does not remain high on its own. It is fed. The media benefits because outrage keeps people watching, clicking, and reacting. Calm truth does not hold attention the same way anger and fear do.
Some special interest groups benefit in a deeper way. Funding is not always the goal. Power and influence are. Their agenda is not simply to protest or reform, but to weaken the foundational principles that hold the nation together. They understand that a united people grounded in law, truth, and shared values is difficult to control. A divided people ruled by emotion is not.
Heightened emotion gives them leverage. When people are angry or afraid, they stop asking hard questions. Facts become obstacles because facts slow things down and bring clarity. Emotion creates urgency, and urgency allows pressure to be applied before truth can surface. Confusion replaces understanding, and reaction replaces reason.
These groups often speak the language of justice, but unity is rarely the goal. Division keeps attention focused. Prolonged outrage keeps people emotionally invested. When emotion fades, influence fades. That is why outrage is rarely allowed to settle.
This does not mean a life did not matter. It means justice cannot be rushed. Facts exist for a reason. They slow us down. They protect fairness. They prevent outcomes from being decided by pressure or passion. Without facts, law becomes reaction, and justice becomes unstable.
Scripture reminds us of this principle in James 1:19–20: “Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, because human anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires.”
Aristotle observed, “The law is reason, free from passion.” That insight still matters. When reason is removed and passion takes control, justice is weakened.
The law exists to rise above emotion, not to be driven by it. When emotion is constantly stirred, it is worth asking who is doing the stirring, and why. Justice cannot be built on feeling alone. Without facts, neither justice nor freedom can endure.

No Chapter Is Wasted

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Last night Carol and I went to see the movie Song Sung Blue. It was a good movie, but what stayed with me was not the music or the scenes. It was the quiet reminder that we often meet people without any real understanding of what they have lived through. We see who they are today, but we rarely see the years that shaped them.
This morning, as I reflected on that thought, one truth stood out clearly. The only way to truly understand people is to spend time with them. A life cannot be understood from a distance, and a story cannot be known through a single conversation. Understanding grows slowly through presence, listening, and shared time.
When I taught men’s groups years ago, I would ask a simple question: how many sermons can you remember? Messages fade. Words spoken are often forgotten. But when someone tells the story of their life, it stays with you. You remember the struggle, the turning points, and the moments when grace intervened. A lived story carries weight in a way teaching alone never can.
That is because stories are not explained, they are lived. A life story holds pain, failure, endurance, and hope together. It includes scars and chapters that are difficult to revisit. Some stories are unfinished. Some are deeply painful. Yet none of that makes a life story insignificant. It gives it depth and meaning.
Scripture reminds us of this truth in Ecclesiastes chapter three, verse eleven: “He has made everything beautiful in its time.” This does not mean every chapter is easy or pleasant, but it does mean no part of a life is wasted in God’s hands. He sees the full story, not just the moments we struggle to understand.
There is a quote that has remained with me for years: “Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.” Every person carries experiences that are not visible on the surface. Beneath what we see are losses, disappointments, fears, and quiet perseverance that have shaped who they are.
When we take the time to be present with people, those unseen parts of their story begin to emerge. What may appear as distance can be rooted in pain. What looks like frustration may be connected to loss. Time and patience reveal truths that quick judgments never will.
We live in a world where meaningful connection is becoming rare. Communication is constant, yet genuine presence is limited. We were not created to live isolated lives. We are relational by design.
My story is not meant to be lived alone. It is shaped and strengthened through relationships with others. In the same way, the stories of those around us need time, care, and understanding. Lives are not fully known in passing moments. They are understood, shaped, and often healed in community.
Just Some Thoughts

What Happened?

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This last week I had a conversation with someone who grew up under my leadership and the leadership of others. That conversation stirred something deep in me and brought back a question that has followed me for years: what happened? Not what happened in the world or in the news, but what happened to people we loved, prayed for, discipled, and sent out in the name of Christ.
In 1985, a small group of couples obeyed what we believed was a clear call from God, and together we started a church. We were not driven by numbers, buildings, or recognition. Our focus was missions, the restoration of men and women God brought to us, and raising up the next generation. We never owned a building. We met wherever doors were opened, in schools, parks, and backyards. We were small in number, but God was clearly at work among us.
We poured ourselves into mission work. We sent young men and women on mission trips, some for weeks, some for months, and some who gave years of their lives in full time service. Along the way, God brought men and women to us who were wounded, weary, or had stepped away from their calling. We walked with them patiently, helped restore their faith and confidence, and watched many return to fruitful ministry. What we experienced was not polished or impressive by the world’s standards, but it was real. There was repentance, sacrifice, obedience, and quiet faithfulness.
Years later, I look back with grief. Some of those same young people who once worshiped passionately and served faithfully are no longer walking with Christ. Some drifted away. Some denied the faith. Others embraced beliefs that left no room for the gospel. Not all of them, by God’s grace, but enough that the question cannot be ignored.
As I prayed through this grief, the words of Jesus in the Parable of the Sower became impossible to ignore. He spoke of seed that fell on rocky ground, springing up quickly because the soil was shallow, but withering when the sun rose and the heat came because it had no root. He also spoke of seed that fell among thorns, where growth was slowly choked by competing desires. In every case, the seed was good. What differed was the soil.
That truth brings clarity. One reason some seed fails is not because the gospel lacks power, but because faith becomes rooted in something that cannot sustain it. When faith is built on rules, systems, or the traditions of men rather than on Christ Himself, the roots never grow deep. Rules can shape behavior, but they cannot sustain faith. Traditions can create structure, but they cannot produce life. Jesus warned of this when He said, “You leave the commandment of God and hold to the tradition of men.”
A faith rooted in tradition may look strong for a season, but it cannot endure pressure. When those traditions are questioned or removed, the faith attached to them often collapses. Seed planted in shallow soil grows quickly because it is supported by routine and environment, but when faith is tested, there is nothing beneath the surface to hold it. Seed among thorns survives for a time, but it is slowly crowded out by other loves, other voices, and other loyalties.
A W Tozer captured the heart of this problem when he wrote, “What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.” If Christ is not the true center of faith, something else will be, and whatever replaces Him will eventually fail.
That brings the question full circle, not with despair, but with direction. How do we move forward? By returning to Christ Himself. Faith must be rooted in who He is, not in rules, traditions, or emotional experiences. What lasts is not what grows fastest, but what grows deepest. Only seed planted deeply in Him will endure the heat, resist the thorns, and bear fruit that lasts.