Why is America not exalted?

For many years the United States was recognized by much of the world as being a nation worth imitating. We were seen as a good people who enjoyed God's blessing. That doesn't seem to be the case anymore. Putting aside the bashing President Obama and his liberal friends are giving our nation, we are not as respected as we once were. Is it, as the media tries to portray, all the fault of George W. and the eight years he and his brazen cowboy friends "ruled?" I don't believe so!

Proverbs 14:34 gives us some tough words to chew on: "Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people." Fact is, our nation is turning its back on God, and this action is resulting in our losing the stature we once enjoyed. One of the things I've noticed through the years is that a just and upright man or woman is respected, even by those who don't understand why the person is so respectable.

Here's a personal example . . . when I was 15 years old I went to work at a local grocery store. One of the men who who worked full-time at the store was Zeke, the produce manager. Zeke was a profane man. His language was raunchy, his mind fixed upon filth, and to top it off he was a bookie who encouraged the teenaged employees to gamble on football games. I never treated Zeke rudely when he made lewd comments around me (he knew I was a "preacher boy") and when questioned about some off-color subject I politely told him that I wasn't interested in such a conversation. I worked at the store about 3 years. Several years later I happened to be in the store with my mother when Zeke approached me. He told me that he had become a Christian and married a Christian woman. And then he said something I have never forgotten. Zeke apologized to me for the many ugly things he had said to me years earlier and stated that even though he treated me so unkindly, he had always respected the way I conducted myself and how I never became angry with him for the way he acted. He was grateful for the witness I had been to him.

Maybe that is what we are missing today as Americans. Oh, we give away billions of dollars to other nations, and we have sent our young men and women to fight and die to protect the weaker nations from those seeking to destroy them. But when those actions aren't accompanied by a righteousness that comes from the proper acknowledgement of God and His truth we no longer have the moral standing that draws the respect and admiration of other nations. This is not to say there are no upright people in America. But, as a nation we have lost sight of what has truly made us great in the past - a national sense of responsibility to God and recognition that what we have comes as a gift from Him.

Righteousness exalts a nation. My prayer is that we might once again be exalted - not for our greatness, but because of His!