It seems that Mr. Obama has ridden support from a lot of dissatisfied people into office, two times! That movement has also carried crazy socialist Bernie Sanders very far as well, though he has stalled. That dissatisfaction has also carried Donald Trump very far as he is now the Republican nominee. Trump may also be supported by, “revolutionaries” but at least he is supportive of business, he is willing to call Islamic extremists, “terrorists”, he supports Israel, and he is willing to listen to Christians and Jews.

And at least Mr. Trump represents many people who have worked very hard and believed in the American dream in this country! I believe in the American dream of working hard, trying my best, and getting ahead. Granted it has rarely worked out for me, but that is another story. Even when I was down and out, I believed that the Lord was not finished with me yet and I knew I had something to share.

I can tell you stories of using Food Stamps, manually operating my wiper blades while driving, many, many college loans, and buying $1.10 in gas and praying for the Lord to bless it and make it get me home.  One would think that I should be a socialist like Mr. Obama’s supporters demonstrated here:

However,  I believed in my hard-work and that (despite what many told me) I did have talents and that the Lord had a wonderful plan for my life. But I also believed that I had to wait and continue to slog through the desert on the way to my promised land. Now I am not bashing people who take advantage of government programs, as I have said, I have been a recipient of them too!

What am I entitled to as an American and as a child of the Lord of the Universe? In this and the next devotional I would like to consider what am I entitled to as an American and then as a believer.

First is the issue of what am I entitled to as an American? Now I know that the Constitution was written by men but I believe that there was some divine inspiration going on at the time. But lets get down to it. What am I entitled to as an American? Very little! The Declaration of Independence,  the Constitution and the Bill of Rights say it best.

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. —

As an American, I have a right to pursue happiness I am not entitled to it.

And….

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of …

Now it does not say anything in the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution about entitlements for gasoline for vehicles or even anything about Welfare or Social Security. But I am glad and thankful those programs are there! I think that the rub comes when someone does not believe in themselves enough to get out of welfare and they do not believe they can aspire to more. I realize that for many people in that situation, it is hard to imagine anything more. But thanks to television, we can always see more. Then there is of course, the economic disincentives to become part of a wealthier group. As someone who has benefited from and has helped others by way of trickle-down economics, I have to say:

I believe in you!

You can do it!

You do not need a welfare state!

You can be successful and feel like a man!

Here is poem that kept me inspired when I was down and out and trying to believe that I could make it. It is about the dream that is America. Make America great again!

Let America be America again. By Langston Hughes

Let it be the dream it used to be.
Let it be the pioneer on the plain
Seeking a home where he himself is free.

(America never was America to me.)

Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed—
Let it be that great strong land of love
Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme
That any man be crushed by one above.

(It never was America to me.)

O, let my land be a land where Liberty
Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath,
But opportunity is real, and life is free,
Equality is in the air we breathe.

(There’s never been equality for me,
Nor freedom in this “homeland of the free.”)

Say, who are you that mumbles in the dark? And who are you that draws your veil across the stars?

I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart,
I am the Negro bearing slavery’s scars.
I am the red man driven from the land,
I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek—
And finding only the same old stupid plan
Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak.

I am the young man, full of strength and hope,
Tangled in that ancient endless chain
Of profit, power, gain, of grab the land!
Of grab the gold! Of grab the ways of satisfying need!
Of work the men! Of take the pay!
Of owning everything for one’s own greed!

I am the farmer, bondsman to the soil.
I am the worker sold to the machine.
I am the Negro, servant to you all.
I am the people, humble, hungry, mean—
Hungry yet today despite the dream.
Beaten yet today—O, Pioneers!
I am the man who never got ahead,
The poorest worker bartered through the years.

Yet I’m the one who dreamt our basic dream
In the Old World while still a serf of kings,
Who dreamt a dream so strong, so brave, so true,
That even yet its mighty daring sings
In every brick and stone, in every furrow turned
That’s made America the land it has become.
O, I’m the man who sailed those early seas
In search of what I meant to be my home—
For I’m the one who left dark Ireland’s shore,
And Poland’s plain, and England’s grassy lea,
And torn from Black Africa’s strand I came
To build a “homeland of the free.”

The free?

Who said the free?  Not me?
Surely not me?  The millions on relief today?
The millions shot down when we strike?
The millions who have nothing for our pay?
For all the dreams we’ve dreamed
And all the songs we’ve sung
And all the hopes we’ve held
And all the flags we’ve hung,
The millions who have nothing for our pay—
Except the dream that’s almost dead today.

O, let America be America again—
The land that never has been yet—
And yet must be—the land where every man is free.
The land that’s mine—the poor man’s, Indian’s, Negro’s, ME—
Who made America,
Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain,
Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain,
Must bring back our mighty dream again.

Sure, call me any ugly name you choose—
The steel of freedom does not stain.
From those who live like leeches on the people’s lives,
We must take back our land again,
America!

O, yes,
I say it plain,
America never was America to me,
And yet I swear this oath—
America will be!

Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death,
The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies,
We, the people, must redeem
The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers.
The mountains and the endless plain—
All, all the stretch of these great green states—
And make America again!

————————————–W.