Perfection Not Required

SCRIPTURE: Whoever has no rule over his own spirit is like a city broken down, without walls. Proverbs 25:28 NIV
Live as free people, but do not use your freedom as a cover-up for evil; live as God’s slaves. 1 Peter 2:16 NIV

QUOTE: “There is no liberty to men who know not how to govern themselves.” – Henry Ward Beecher, 1847, Pastor, Plymouth Church, Brooklyn, NY

THOUGHT: There are voices from ancient times to today who express the same sentiment of our founders that self-rule must necessarily precede successful government. King Solomon knew it thousands of years ago, even as his own kingdom was lost when Biblical and spiritual values were cast aside for immorality and pagan idols (1 Kings 11) – starting with him, a man whom God had spoken to and blessed. I suggest he knew the truth of his wise proverb very personally. Henry Ward Beecher, brother of Harriet Beecher Stowe (who wrote Uncle Tom’s Cabin), was an early pastor in America who underwent his own trial having to do with self-government. Accused of adultery by a friend’s wife, he was eventually acquitted, but questions persisted and it left a long stain on his life. So, perhaps Beecher, too, knew the personal truth of his maxim.

I don’t come to the discussion of self-government without my own story to tell of how its’ lack leads to a life with broken down walls and no liberty. Childhood abuse and relational and vocational pain have left their marks on me like chicken pox after scratching. I have learned the hard way that governing ones’ own life is a gift – liberty is not bowing to what others want me to be or say or do, and it’s not demanding my own way by wealth or power or position. It is bowing to what my Maker asks. And what is that? Well, if we went no further than the 10 Commandments, we’d have cities with firm foundations and walls, and lives of private virtue necessary to building a successful republic.

In short: don’t lie, covet, steal, murder, commit adultery, practice idolatry, or use God’s name in any profane way. Do love God, keep the Sabbath holy, and honor your parents. Be free, but don’t use your freedom to cover evil.

It’s all there and we don’t need volumes of law books and codes and lawyers and judges to spell it out for us. Slavery is wrong, it’s stealing. Propaganda is wrong, it’s lying. Abortion is wrong, it’s murder. Adultery is wrong because it involves lying, coveting, stealing and idolatry. Idolatry is wrong because it displaces God in the heart and mind. Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

The point is that we don’t have to be perfect to build a great, free country – and none of the founders (or the Americans since them) were. We just have to subscribe to a code of moral behavior that leads to human flourishing.

PRAYER: We’ve lost it, oh great God. We’re a nation in distress because we’ve lost a firm grip on your words to us about how to be a people, together, in unity. Under your good rule first, and then under the rulers we appoint from among us to see to it that your justice and mercy and rules for human flourishing are honored. Forgive us. Give us the guts and grace to speak into broken lives and broken commandments, owning that we have broken them ourselves, and giving testimony to your forgiveness and restoration.