State of the Union

Next Tuesday President Trump will deliver his State of the Union address.

Some in Congress have already declared they will not be attending.

They’ve attached labels to our President such as racist, misogynist, and insane.

Some rank him up there with the Anti-Christ.

It makes one curious on what he’ll speak about?

Wouldn’t you like to sneak a peak at a draft of the speech?

Perhaps it would read something like this:

I report to you that our country is challenged, at home and abroad.

We must maintain a military force that is capable of deterring any threat to this Nation’s security, whatever the mode of aggression.

On the home front violence has shown its face in some of our cities.

Crime increases in our streets.

Income for farm workers remains far behind that of urban workers.

Hospital and medical costs are high and they are rising.

Essentials to work on are, more jobs, the rebuilding of our cities and more housing.

A proper gun control law and a drug control act to provide stricter penalties.

Recommendations of new programs for air safety measures, poverty, educational opportunities and civil rights.

These are excerpts and points made in Lyndon B. Johnson’s State of the Union address in 1968.

Fifty years ago yet it seems like they could have been ripped from the headlines of today.

Have we made any progress in these areas?

Apparently not near enough as we continue to struggle with them.

Fifty years and still dealing with a majority of the same issues as a nation.

Here’s how LBJ wrapped it up.

Several of these goals are going to be very hard to reach. They are more important, much more important, than the identity of the party or the President who will then be in office. Can we achieve these goals?

Of course we can, if we will.

If ever there was a people who sought more than mere abundance, it is our people.

If ever there was a nation that was capable of solving its problems, it is this Nation.

If ever there were a time to know the pride and the excitement and the hope of being an American, it is this time.

Will we do it?

Will we achieve these decades old goals?

It won’t happen if we continue on the path we’re on now.

These goals will not be achieved by boycotting the State of the Union address.

President Johnson was right in saying it’s not about the President or the party.

These issues plague the nation and as such must be dealt with as a nation.

President Woodrow Wilson stated, “We cannot be separated in interest or divided in purpose. We stand together until the end”.

Colossians 3:13-14 reads, Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgives. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.

Amen.

See you out there.