I was reflecting the other day about my early days growing up in Iowa in the 1950s. What a massive contrast between that time and now! It’s not even close to being the same nation that I once experienced.
What has happened in the land of my birth in the last 60 years and how far we have fallen as a nation is grievous to me. There are many relevant answers as to why things are going from worse to critical, but we only need ponder the mind of God through the timeless written Word of Holy Scripture to get proper perspective about “why” all of this is happening to us.
I submit to you that unless that biblical perspective is realized, we will not be able to understand what has already been declared as the God-ordained remedy. And until we understand the remedy, we will not be able to actually execute that remedy. That’s why I wrote the seven books called the Covenant Heritage Series. [HOT]
My Early Years
I was born in 1952 in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. It was one of the bigger cities in Iowa, but it was predominantly White – I’m guessing probably 99% White. Those were the carefree years when I would get on my bike as a young lad and meet up with my buddies and be out all day. My parents never worried about me or my whereabouts unless I didn’t come home for dinner. I remember getting together with my friends and forming pick-up games of basketball or football. Going fishing was a frequent agenda activity.
In those days of 1950s and early 1960s, everybody left their houses unlocked and the keys in the car. There was virtually no crime except for a few mischief makers. We lived in freedom because we had a common set of moral boundaries and expected behaviors. We policed ourselves. And it was racially homogeneous, which was a major factor in our culture at that time. We guarded that principle of separation because we knew it was the foundation of a stable society, although we didn’t really know why. It wasn’t perfect, but it was our culture and it worked. We lived in security, peace, order and freedom.
My Teens and Twenties
In the ‘60s, I recall the major event of the Kennedy assassination and the lone gunman (Lee Harvey Oswald) narrative, and the advent of the Beatles starring on the Ed Sullivan Show. I was aware of the Vietnam war and the protests and sometimes violent demonstrations, but at that time in my life, I did not understand what was going on. My reality was confined to dreaded school work in high school and college, my friends, and the future. As to the reality of what was happening in my nation and why, I was unaware that I was unaware that I was unaware.
That ignorance lasted for the next 15 years until the God revealed in the Bible began a paradigm shift in my life that was dramatic and painful. Briefly, that was a time that God broke my spirit. He jerked me out of the Judeo-Christian churches where I pastored and leveled me spiritually, financially, and in every other way you can imagine. I didn’t understand it at the time and resented God for my dire circumstances, but it was all in preparation to rebuild me from the ground up. It was a necessary work of God in my life that would change me forever.
That was the beginning of my education and discovering God’s calling in my life.
In Part 2, I will tell you about my transition that would help me to understand what happened in this nation and why.
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