Independence Day Thoughts from a Friend

We thought you might enjoy this sharing from a friend. – G&S

Happy Birthday, USA – A Unique and Exceptional Country

by Jeff Gardner

I spent a year after graduating from high school as a foreign exchange student living with a host family in the country of Bolivia in South America.  One evening my Bolivian sister was doing homework with one of her friends when they asked me what was the date of the end of our War of Independence.  I thought for a minute, and I replied that I could not remember the date of the end of the war.
Both girls stared at me with puzzled looks and asked, “You don’t know the date when the United States began?”  I replied, “Well, yes, that was July 4, 1776.  But that was at the beginning of the war.”  That answer gave them one more thing to look puzzled about.  Then it began to dawn on me.

Every other country in the New World – possibly even the world over – that broke away from the mother country dates its beginning as a nation from the end of its war for independence.  The United States is unique in that we date the beginning of the nation from the beginning of the war.  Every other country fought as slaves and subjects trying to gain their freedom; the United States fought as free men defending the freedom they declared was already theirs.  Others fought to become a nation; we fought, already a nation – and we dared the empire to prove us wrong.

Another incident along a similar tack occurred at a dinner party sometime later.  One of the guests cornered me and wanted to know how the United States were indeed the United States.  He said that the countries in South America never seemed to achieve that.  There was constant turmoil and strong-man politics, but very little evidence of being united – even though “United States” is part of the official name of at least two countries, Mexico and Brazil.

I could not give the man an answer at the time.  As I continued to think about it, what became clear to me was the founding of the different countries seemed to have a lasting effect on them.  For the most part, South America was founded by the Spanish or Portuguese as plundered, wealth producing colonies, with a strong-man empire style of government that simply replaced the existing strong-man empires of the South American Indians.

On the other hand, for the most part, the United States was founded on the principle of liberty, most specifically, religious liberty – many came to these shores to have the liberty to worship God as they saw fit – and this is partly expressed in our Declaration of Independence naming some of our God-given rights as “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

We are thankful for Jeff’s perspective. So often, Americans can take religious and political freedoms for granted. It took a few committed men and women, who trusted God, to lay a foundation for those freedoms. Any person in any nation can claim the freedom we have in Christ. Let’s thank the Father for His grace to those around the world who seek His help.  –– Gene & Sherry