Monday Ministerial Musings
By Rev. Mark William Ennis
2023 Blog #27
July 3, 2023
God Has Blessed America. Pass On The Blessing
Each year on and around July 4th I hear the phrase “God Bless America.” I say this a lot as well. I love this country. Every time that I have traveled outside of the Unites States, my experiences have caused me to love this country even more. God truly has blessed America and I am grateful that I was born here and continue to reside here.
Each week, accompanied, Ivan who is our Spanish church planter, when I give lunches to the day laborers in town I hear from these gentlemen how grateful they are to be in this country. Most are fleeing poverty but many are fleeing violence from drug lords and even violence from their governments. There is often terrible retribution to pay for speaking out against the governments in other nations. For these people, coming to America is the greatest blessing of their lives and they appreciate being here in ways that most native born Americans do not.
These newcomers remind me of the grandparents of grammar school friends who immigrated here to gain a better life and insisted that their children and grandchildren learn English and enjoy the fruit of their labors in their new nation. No one that I knew growing up was more patriotic than immigrants and their children. I find that the same is true for newer immigrants as well. They appreciate this country more deeply than those of us who grew up here.
With our aging population I can’t help but wonder what will happen to us without the new wave of immigrants to our country. There are simply not enough native workers to staff our hospitals and rehabilitation centers. We do not have enough people born here to staff the jobs requiring manual labor. Our immigrants bless us at least as much as we bless them by granting them residence here. In short, as the immigration of the 1920’s was mutually beneficial, so the recent immigration is a mutual blessing to us who were born here and to those who are arriving.
Our blessing other does not stop at our shores. My Grandparent’s generation blest the world during World War Two. My parent’s generation kept South Korea Free from the Chinese and North Korean armies.
People a decade older than I traveled the world with the Peace Corps and blessed many nations throughout the world.
Our nation has a long and glorious history of blessing those overseas as well as those traveling the seas to come and live with us. I pray on this, the cusp of Independence Day, our nation will continue to be a blessing to others even as we have been blessed.
I pray that in the future, our nation will continue to be a blessing to those who have lived here for generations as well as for those who have lived here just a short time. God has blessed America and will continue to do so as long as we continue to be a blessing to others.
#ReformedChurchInAmerica #PastorMarkAuthor
#BergenCounty #BergenfieldNJ
#IndependenceDay #Immigration
#Blessing #BeingBlessed
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