Alva Review-Courier -

Ramblings of a Redneck Farmer

This time of the year means lots of things, but in particular this part of the calendar means a couple of things in Oklahoma.

One, school has started and if school has started that also means Friday Night Lights has also started. If you aren’t from Oklahoma, and particularly rural Oklahoma, you don’t understand how big of a deal high school football is, until this past Friday night.

A football game in the Oklahoma City metro was interrupted in the third quarter by gunfire. Suddenly the outcome of games on the gridiron instantly became less important.

Instead of trying to break tackles and score touchdowns and make tackles for loss, kids ran off the field immediately, scrambling for their lives. Ladies and gentlemen, this is ridiculous.

The left will no doubt seize this opportunity to push their leftist agenda and talk again about the need for gun control to protect our children. I think you all know where I stand on gun control. The right will seize the chance to blame it all on the mental health crisis that some of us don’t believe is happening in this country.

While one has nothing to do with what happened at Choctaw and the other can be argued as a vital element in the shooting, we always seem to leave out very critical aspects of why our world is going to Hell in a hand basket. That is we, as a whole, don’t respect the gift of life that our Creator gave to us.

There is no sanctity of life anymore. Life is expendable to so many of us and that is our first obstacle we have to overcome.

This loss of the treasure that life is was lost long ago. Some would believe that when abortion on demand became as common as a Slurpee at 7-11, our value of a person’s life left the building.

When Roe vs Wade was originally ruled upon in 1973 it set in motion a cascading effect of extermination. It started the lessening of the value of life. It started the disrespect of life that is now so prevalent in our country and our state. Over 63 million abortions later, the sacredness that we should allot every life is down to somewhere between slim and none and slim just left the building.

How did we get to the point where a life, whether it was a 16-year-old at a football game or a soul still in the mother’s womb, become so nonessential? We stepped away from God.

Actually that maybe the understatement of the century. We haven’t stepped away; we have run away from God with all the might and gusto we can muster. I believe in my heart that is the issue we have today in this country. We have run away from Jesus.

When people don’t believe Jesus is the son of God. When people don’t believe there is a Heaven and a Hell. When people can’t understand how just being a good person won’t get them into Heaven. When people don’t see the urgency of turning their life over to Jesus Christ and leading a life that influences their children to lead Christian lives also, is it any wonder we don’t “get” the understanding of just how holy and sacred a life is?

Even Satan and his demons understand there is a God and understand his strength. They understand that, and they shudder. Humans on the other hand today pass religion off as a cult-like thought process. How can God be real we say, we can’t see him? We mock our Creator. We don’t listen to his teachings. We minimize the importance of reading his word in school and at home. We make it illegal in places to bring the word. We legitimize freedom from religion not freedom of religion. We let our kids listen to violent music, play violent video games, sleep around, do all sorts of drugs, drink like fish and act like our children are our friends instead of our children.

We lack discipline with our kids. We lack love with our kids. We aren’t parents. Hell, we are barely babysitters anymore and is it any wonder that kids in the past two generations have no idea what a family unit is and what love and care from a parent even looks like? Don’t even get me started on divorce. It’s all because we have stepped away from God.

If we can manage to fix that issue in this country, we will be on the way to fixing the problem of not giving a hoot about a life. Please pray with me that God comes into those people’s lives and fills their heart.

Life is sacred to God, our Creator. In Jeremiah 1:5 it talks about God forming him in the womb. In Luke 12:7 it talks about even the hairs on your head are numbered and in Genesis 1:27 it talks about God making man in his own image. Life is a priceless treasure given to us by God. Let’s start treating it like the riches it is, not the trash that is heaped up in the alley.

When we do that, disagreements might be settled with fists but not by pulling a trigger.

Talk to you next week.