Proud to be American
The other day we went to a home-school book sale, to make an attempt to sell large boxes of literature from our library… a mere fraction of the books we own. One lady walked up and picked up a Jackie Chan movie we were selling, and proceeded to remark on how strange his movies could be, concluding that it must be his very worldly home, Hong Kong, that causes him to be so crude in his movies. While I decided not to respond, inside I was thinking; and how is Hong Kong more worldly that America? I don’t know much about the city, but I do know that a good portion of Americans are not in the place to look down on other regions and countries because of “worldliness”.
While many Americans claim to be Christians and make the weekly trip to church, I think a lot of them are just too proud to truly make the uncomfortable move to examine their selves and their lifestyles, which seem to strangely resemble those of non-believers. There’s a difference between a sense of pride in our Country’s heritage and beliefs, and a sense of pride in the people’s beliefs and habits.
Our safety and prosperity, I truly believe, has left us at a disadvantage. We are so enclosed in this bubble of safety, that often no matter how hard we try we cannot take our eyes off ourselves to correctly view the rest of the world. Truly we are one of the most blessed nations on earth, and yet many fail realize just how much God is working in other nations as well.
Pride is normally hard to admit to. And yet Americans do it all the time- we’re all “proud to be American”- proud of our Country, our State… maybe we’re proud of a certain leader we like who was elected. But I think that if we step back to think about where this pride is leading us, many may be surprised to find a hatred and disgust towards other nations, who are just as worldly, sinful, and filthy as we are.
That day at the book sale, we sold but two items. Anyone interested?
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1 comment:
I didn't know someone said that at that book sale!! You didn't tell me. I've been to Hong Kong - so has Emily and Josh, but I'm afraid you weren't born yet Jennifer! It looked less worldly to me because the standard of living was lower than ours, thus, the people possessed fewer toys to play with than we do. We had come from Japan where the people were rich enough to have a balcony off their apartment to dry their clothes on. But in Hong Kong, the people had no balcony and had to dry their clothes on rods outside their windows - can you imagine living 20 stories up and having to lean way out your window to hang up your wet clothes?? That is poverty compared to the USA.
Also, at that time, Tiananmen Square happened and the people were out in force protesting on behalf of their fellow Chinese who lost their lives. It was a bit scary for us, not knowing if it would get violent or not, but I was impressed that the people cared rather than being complacent in their more comfortable lives than their Chinese brethren.
I realize worldiness goes much deeper than a person's standard of living, but it is all I could judge on, since I was only there a few days and did not visit personally with people to go deeper in their lives.
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