Letter to the President
Written after President Bush's initial declaration of "War on Terror."
To Mr. George W. Bush
I write to warn you of a prophetic bit of wisdom found in scripture. Proverbs 16:18 & 19 states “Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall. Better to be lowly in spirit and among the oppressed than to share plunder with the proud.”
Before you continue to seek the counsel of men and before you continue to encourage our nation to be proud; please seek God’s wisdom. Before you make political decisions; please seek to be a Godly leader.
A Godly leader seeks God first. A Godly leader seeks God’s perspective. On our current path, our nation is not “under God,” but is “under pride.” Our responses and future plans are built on the same pride that initially encourage terrorist attacks. In our own wisdom, we automatically assume that retaliation is best, for it shows strength. Retaliation shows more than strength. Retaliation shows that we our proud of our values. Retaliation proclaims that these values are worth the price of killing others.
For what values are we willing to kill? Our nation is expressing pride in money. Our nation is expressing pride in military strength. Our nation is expressing pride in “human perseverance.” Our nation is expressing pride in “freedom.”
“Freedom” and “human perseverance” sound like worthwhile ideals of which to be proud. Are they real, though?
Human perseverance exists anywhere in the world. We did nothing, as a nation, to create or develop it. Human perseverance is the closest humans get to being animals. Granted, we have higher-order thinking skills, which allow us to see more than immediate danger. Granted, we will strive to not only help ourselves, but help others. Why, though, do we help others? We are too often seeking to preserve “pride in American ideals.” We are too often seeking to quickly re-build what we had so that we can disregard any lesson that might have been learned.
Our freedom has enslaved us to money. We are so greatly enslaved to money that one of our first concerns has been “when will the markets re-open?” Our freedom has enslaved us to secular humanism and our own wisdom, ignoring the wisdom of God. Our freedom has enslaved us to power, so much that we feel weak if we do not display any. Our freedom has enslaved us to opinion and emotion, so that we want to act in a way that will seem appropriate, swift, and just to the entire world. Our freedom has enslaved us to our pride.
Our pride has brought us, now, to a point when we must either act in pride or return to God. I can not say what God would have us do, but I know we have not sought Him yet. We have appealed to Him to build us back up. Why would God seek to rebuild that which has sought to tear Him down?
I do not wish to seem unempathetic. There are many dead who ought not to be. There are many grieving who need comfort. We can not bring back the dead. God can comfort and console. We must, though, not allow these deaths to take us further from God. We must not allow ourselves to turn “American Pride” into our God.
Our “American Pride” tells us to lash out at the evildoers. I have heard my President claim that we will wipe out terrorism. That seems like a wonderful goal, but do we truly mean that? Do we truly want to wipe out all of the terrorism in Ireland, Africa, China, and Japan as well as the Middle East? Or do we only want to wipe out terrorism that destroys our pride? Once we’ve finished killing, will the world view the U.S.A. as a wise nation, or a prideful bully?
I beg you, pray for God’s guidance and intervention. Pray, also, that God will guide your prayers. Pray before we leap. Pray before we have fully turned from God.
Thank you for your time in reading this. I do not consider myself to be a prophet, but I do believe God grants me wisdom, from His perspective, from time to time.
William C. Fenstermaker, Jr.
William C. Fenstermaker, Jr.
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