This business of living by reaction has become a way of life not only for individuals, but also for government in our society. Government seems to be consumed by solving "problems," especially social problems, usually by spending our tax money on so-called "solutions" that almost always have unintended consequences that are very bad. Whether we think of single-parent families or family farms, government has a program to "help," programs that have produced more, rather than fewer, single-parent families, and have resulted in such expensive farming costs that new farmers, who did not inherit a farming operation from their parents, have become extinct (something we ought to be far more concerned about than polar bears, who in spite of their growing numbers have been lobbied into being called an "endangered species").

The point is that living by reaction is a dead-end road because only someone who knows everything and is perfectly righteous, which none of us are, could pull it off. The Holy Bible has a much better way, a way that our grandparents found to be very effective and successful for the first 175 years of America's existence. This biblical way is founded on having sound principles of work and respect, and of right and wrong. When we live by such principles, we will not only avoid most problems, but we will be able to handle the problems that do arise, not by reaction, but by applying wise principles that we know are right because they come from God. King Solomon did that when confronted with two women with one live baby and one dead baby. His principle was to get the live baby to its true mother, the right thing to do. His wisdom sought out the weakness of human nature, envy, by offering to cut the live baby in half. The wrong mother said "OK," the right one said, "No, give it to her." Problem solved!

Now, the main point of this is that such right principles of life are found today, as they were by our grandparents, not in religions of violence or in atheism, but in the Holy Bible. As our parents attended Christian churches, read their Bibles and prayed, they found that David's program in Psalm 1 was the best way to live, personally and publicly. David said, "How happy is the person who does not walk in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stand in the way of sinners, nor sit in the seat of the scornful," but, "his delight is in the law of the Lord, and in His law he meditates day and night." Real happiness is a byproduct of understanding and following God's laws. It is not found in doing our own thing, something the Bible calls and condemns as "doing what is right in our own eyes."

True happiness is not found in drugs, or adulterous sex, or victorious football teams. True happiness is found in a life that knows where it came from-God, that knows what we are doing here, seeking to live a moral life toward God and our neighbor, and that knows that the answer to sin is God's forgiveness for ourselves and our forgiveness for those around us. America in the past has produced great people and great leaders, men and women who founded our nation, freed the slaves, and overcame tyranny in WWII, all by living the God-given principles of Psalm 1, a fact that even our history books today avoid mentioning. Our future and our nation's future depend upon choices we will make in 2010.