A Nation Rebuilt

Ned was not happy.  He should have been, he had a responsible job and was an important man.  He’d been here for years and was utterly trusted in his position.  As long as he didn’t screw up, his future was assured.  And yet, he was very unhappy.

Ned had been dreaming of home, a ramshackle place a long way from here.  Once it had been a great city, with high walls for protection and architecture of stunning beauty inside.  The city had been known far and wide for the nobility of its people, their uprightness and courage, and their belief in a God that seemed to prosper them no matter what.  Monarchs from countries far and wide came to see this incredible city, and left convinced that this God was actually real.  And the people, what fine lives they lived!  Ah, it had been a busy, happy, thriving place. 

Every living person had contributed to the building and care of that city in one way or another, and oh, they were proud of it.  But time had passed, the king had died, and his successors were much less noble than he.  Eventually the people followed the examples their leaders provided, and nobility and even simple courtesy had ceased to become standard in the country.  Those that remembered better days wondered where their God had gone.  Those that didn’t wondered if God had ever really existed at all.

Over the decades greed and corruption flourished, and taxes skyrocketed up while protection of the citizens spiraled down.  It grew increasingly harder for an honest man to make a living.  The people who still believed in God were not worshipping like before, as their worship days were, out of necessity, now work days like any other.  Over time many quit worshipping at all.  It wasn’t too many decades before the citizens of that magnificent walled city, who had once awed foreign monarchs with their faith in a God who protected them so mightily, weren’t any different from the foreigners who had no God. 

Ned had studied all of this history for years, trying to make sense of his situation.  He believed in God, and served Him with all his heart. And he knew others who did too.  So why, when God had promised to preserve his people forever, had He abandoned them?  Why was he a slave, miles from his homeland?  Why was his homeland so disheveled?  But through years of research and study, he had finally understood. God is love, and He loves His people.  But because He is love, He doesn’t force Himself anywhere He’s not wanted.  He loves his people enough to let them choose for themselves.  And God’s people chose, little by little, year by year, to leave Him.  The more they depended on their own sensibilities, the more they made their own rules and did things their own way, the less they needed God, and the less God interfered.  Finally the day came when their enemies were stronger than they were, and God was nowhere to be found.  Armies ran down the city, the stronghold of that nation; they took control of everything, and killed or enslaved everyone they caught.  It was almost total decimation of a culture, for those who escaped ran for their lives, ending up all over the globe.  Those few who stayed and survived did so by blending in with the very societies that had nearly destroyed them.