“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
Independence Day. A celebration of America declaring it’s uniqueness and independence from the British Empire. Those who authored the declaration chose wording that aptly depicts their state of existence. The words were not chosen at random, nor were they just tossed together. They were crafted. They recognized that there existed an independence from man, in this case King George III while having an incredible perceptiveness of their dependence on their “Creator”.
I stop and pause. Have I taken the time to realize this? Have I read this sentence, all 36 words, and been so familiar with it to be able to recite it yet blind to its message? I sit here, with a full stomach after a cookout and fireworks and wonder do I really understand.
I choose to understand…you ought to as well.
What follows are key words and phrases that I believe define God’s rightful place in America. We’ve strayed from this truth as a nation and I believe it important to highlight this one, 36 word sentence.
Self-evident
A small phrase that carries a big stick! These truths being self-evident mean that by their nature, they do not require proof to attain understanding of them. They are true without proof.
All men are created equal
All men, all races, all colors, all possessing the same stated truths that do not require proof. Men are created equal to other men; it does not say equal to God. We are created, indicating that we must have a Creator. We are not equal to our creator. We are equal to other men. These authors clearly believed in the existence of one deity, one God who created them.
Endowed by their Creator
To endow means to establish. Our Creator chose to establish self-evident truths in us when creating us, demonstrating His passion to have a relationship with us. We didn’t have multiple creators. The sentence does not reference the word creator in a plural sense, rather, a singular sense. We have one Creator and one only.
Certain unalienable Rights
Self-evident rights, universal to all men, not contingent on any man written law. These are endowed, established in every human being by the one Creator. They stand opposite of legal rights, rights created by a legal system, whether corrupt or un-corrupt. Unalienable rights stand as ones that cannot be removed, erased, or re-written. They stand, ingrained, burned into us, permanently encoded into our internal wiring. They cannot be ignored when convenient. They exist by the hand of the Creator.
Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness
The rights of every human; that which are not dependent on man, but are endowed by the Creator. We exist (Life) with the freedom (Liberty) to pursue happiness, true happiness. If the Creator, and by Creator I mean God, established these rights in us and God is good (Luke 18:19 And Jesus said to him, “Why do you call Me good? No one is good except God alone.) then the pursuit of happiness does not include those pursuits that go against the good nature of God, rather they will be of good report, just and right according to His good purpose.
I know this may seem split, maybe even broken down into a set of non flowing chunks of information, but there is one cohesive thread that binds it together. In one well-crafted 36 word sentence, the framers of the country we enjoy today believed in one single Creator and that is God. They believed that the He endowed in us certain self-evident rights that require no proof, that cannot be changed or modified to fit what we think or what any government thinks. They stand fast, strong, immovable and irrevocable, standing opposite of legal rights made by man. They believed that all men are created equal, not men equal to God. These men risked the very rights they spoke of (Life, Liberty, Happiness) because they believed in something bigger than themselves. They believed in God.
Unfortunately, I feel I am in the minority. Many say they believe in God, but live a life in stark contrast to scripture. They love life, liberty and happiness, but remove the God that provides all three.
In the famous words of Gary Burbank also known as Earl Pitts…”Wake up America!”
