Just Do Your Part

Did you go vote the other day? I have to admit I had no idea half the things on the ballet were going to be there. Keeping up with the political scene in this country is like trying to read the fine print in an advertisement on the TV screen or attempting to read the full message on a billboard while rolling down the road at seventy. It’s rare you get the full message but you simply don’t have the time to go back to read it again. I hope you’re not the kind of person that says, “My vote won’t mean much anyway. That sort of stuff is already decided before anyone goes to the polls.” I’ve heard that sort of logic before and it doesn’t make sense to me. If you’re one of the millions of qualified voters who don’t exercise their right to vote, you’re giving away your rights, period.
I walked through a county courthouse square; On a park bench an old man was sitting there. I said, ‘Your old courthouse is kinda run down’; He said, ‘Naw, it’ll do for our little town’. I said, ‘Your flagpole is leaning a little bit, and that’s a Ragged Old Flag you got hanging on it’. He said, ‘Have a seat’, and I sat down. ‘Is this the first time you’ve been to our little town’? I said, ‘I think it is’. He said, ‘I don’t like to brag, but we’re kind of proud of that Ragged Old Flag. You see, we got a little hole in that flag there when Washington took it across the Delaware; And it got a bad rip in New Orleans with Packingham and Jackson tugging at its seams. And it almost fell at the Alamo beside the Texas flag, but she waved on through. She got cut with a sword at Chancellorsville and she got cut again at Shiloh Hill. There was Robert E. Lee, Beauregard and Bragg and the south wind blew hard on that Ragged Old Flag. On Flanders Field in World War I she got a big hole from a Bertha gun. She turned blood red in World War II; She hung limp and low a time or two. She was in Korea and Vietnam; She went where she was sent by her Uncle Sam. She waved from our ships upon the briny foam and now they’ve about quit waving her back here at home. In her own good land she’s been abused. She’s been burned, dishonored, denied and refused. And the government for which she stands is scandalized throughout the land. And she’s getting threadbare and wearing thin, but she’s in good shape for the shape she’s in; ‘Cause she’s been through the fire before and I believe she can take a whole lot more. So we raise her up every morning; Take her down every night. We don’t let her touch the ground, and we fold her up right. On second thought I DO like to brag; ‘Cause I’m mighty proud of that Ragged Old Flag’. Written by Johnny Cash. Flag Day is June 14th. I have to confess, I don’t own a flag to fly, but I will soon, lest I forget.
[Ruth] She could not see it during the famine or when her family moved to another country. She could not see it when her husband died, or when he sons married foreign women, or when her son died. She could not see it when she returned to her hometown in bitterness and struggled to make ends meet, though God was helping her. She could not see it even when things began to turn around for the better, when financial security and deliverance arrived. She could not see it even when a son was born to her daughter-in-law. Naomi could not see that that baby boy, Obed, became the grandfather of David, the great king of Israel, who was the great ancestor of the Messiah, who came to save us from our sins. You can’t see very far down the line, but God has a great plan and you are a part of it. Stand up, be proud and do your part.