Friends, the whole of my life I have been a man of action! I have been called “A-Personality”, “Driven” and an “Overachiever”, and often. But the rub is that throughout my maturing I have come to realize hard-nosed, hard-driving leadership styles really only work in the short term – if at all. “The meek” do truly “inherit the earth” – before you judge allow me to explain:
The essence of this life truly boils down to relationships. Marriage, Parenting, Work, Schooling, Politics, Geo-Politics and life with God – all relationships. I wish in high school someone had explained this simple but profound concept to me, “Robert, you are going to have to learn to get along with people, even people who are impossible to get along with… your relationships will make or break you…”. I like to believe I would have listened and avoided many years of challenges in the process.
But our culture esteems “The Bad Boy”. It’s everywhere in our Western World: pop-culture movies, high school and college girls tend to chase after the tougher and even rude boys, in hip-hop and R&B, in 80’s Rock & Roll and yes, even in politics, we, as a culture remain drawn to the “Bad Boys”. The trouble with this in practice is that the “Bad Boys” tend to be loners, often arrogant and difficult to get along with, terrible at all things relationship. The tender-hearted, concerned and loving young man finds little place for himself in our 21st Century America. Hopefully this is changing with the younger generation?
Honestly, I never thought of myself as strong - until I got married. My wife’s reactions quickly helped me to see that I had become way too dominate, forceful and practically impenetrable throughout my twenties and early thirties – but how to change? Changing this about me has not come without its challenges. To be transparent with you all, I still have a long-ways to go tenderizing my heart. But throughout my thirties and now in my forties I am acutely aware of what it looks like to win the “long-game” in relationships as opposed dominating and demanding my way thru life.
For America, I fear we might win the battle but lose the war. What I mean is that while momentum is clearly with us at the moment, we have in fact convinced much of the nation of our cause and plight, and even recruited many to jump ship to join us - but what now? Isn’t that the question? We ended up with this amazing “Save America” and “MAGA” movement that I consider myself a part of and now we must ask ourselves the big question, “What kind of a movement will we be?” and “How will we be remembered?”
Movements have come and gone throughout American history, some have lingered, I have met many old and die-hard hippies throughout my travels, for instance. Should the Lord tarry, what will the next generations have to say about us? Will we be remembered as the movement to truly Save America? Keeping China at bay, chasing down the evil-doers and traitors to our constitution, uniting the nation like never-before? Or something else? I am praying for the very best victories for America as we continue forward. I like Mike Lindell’s messaging on the subject. He often brings up Revival! Like a real spiritual revival! I enjoy those thoughts. Reviving the heart and soul and spirit of America! And isn’t that, in truth, what we are after? We all have policies we strongly believe in and we have policies we are willing to fight to the death over, most of us anyway… But it’s a difficult task ahead of us. I’m afraid that we are going to stumble into some sort of political and even fanatical, misplaced-zeal and accidentally crush the little that is left of the heart and soul of our nation. I see our movement going one of two directions at the moment.
How to save a soul? This is truly The Question. How to Save the heart and soul of America. Consider it for a moment. How would you do it? Afterall, each of us has a role to play. During the Covid, lock-down riots I wrote about this some… I appreciated the way the President handled the situation with such poise and compassion. He could have really smashed those dissidents into subjection but he was so empathetic and even long-suffering towards them. I was very proud of President Trump throughout those times, very proud to call him my President. But during those times I wrote at length about “How to save a life”??
Our adversary is very real, very alive and active. He preys on the broken and hurting among us, they are his low-hanging fruit: people who come from broken families, extreme-poverty, fatherlessness, substance abuses, loveless environments, etc. - these who will either create generations of suffering and dis-ease or become some of the most empathetic and spiritually mature among us. But from what I have seen the overwhelming majority of these folks end up stuck in a cycle of despair and hopelessness, never breaking out of the sins of their fathers and the generations before them. And these are some of the most hurting of our American brothers and sisters. If we are going to Save America we will have to, at some point in time, start talking about the more vital long-game even as we solve the immediate problems ahead of us.
What is broken in America is a spiritual problem at its core. Our enemy recruits broken and hurting people to fill his ranks. But those people are not the enemy, they are in fact broken and hurting people, people who are lost that need help finding their way. The movement that will Save America, in truth, will be the movement that chooses to go after these among us, chase them down, pioneer and invent creative and loving ways to not merely “Solve their problems” but “Win their hearts and minds”!
Fear will win a following - without a doubt. Kindle a fire talking about the Communist CCP, our broken election system, the Big Tech monopolies controlling the information streams, the swamp who has been running DC, etc., we need to fix broken things. But we must be careful becoming a fire-breather, we must be tempered with this power, we might accidentally burn the whole house down!? It’s a complex and perilous time in our nation but love still wins the day. There is a kind of fire fueled from anger and vengeance and then there is a fiery love.
The power of fear to sway a people is very real and will keep them in bondage to a certain agenda but the power of love will set men free, expose evil and change the hearts and minds of a nation – for generations! People will certainly fight for a cause when they get afraid enough – but people will live and die for a cause that they truly believe in when they know that they are safe and loved. Fear verses Love? Love wins. It may take longer but without a doubt, Love wins the war – and for generations.
I think myself well aware of the urgency of the hour but the hour has been urgent since 9/11… wouldn’t you agree? Now, I agree that things have only degraded since 9/11 – I agree that the hour feels only more desperate but what if a movement of power, and love and a sound-mind (2 Tim 1:7) formed after 9/11? Instead of the constant fear-mongering and propaganda that we have grown almost desensitized to? The hour is urgent. The hour to Save America has never been more urgent and desperate but I conclude with this warning, “We are very close to winning a major battle but losing the nation, forever.” The spiritual revival must begin – I pray for it to come, daily.
The battle lines have been drawn like never before. The warring sides are more committed to their cause, more determined and zealous than probably since Lincoln’s civil-war. Let me encourage us all as I close. If we are going to truly win the nation, and not just for a few years or a decade, we must do so by changing our hearts towards those we perceive as enemies. Most of the great speeches by US Presidents and our other nations leaders begin with, “My fellow Americans…” We must take the cause of “My Fellow Americans” to heart - even as we hunt down the evil-doers and labor to fix so much of what is broken in this nation we must remember the cause of our American brothers and sisters, from DC to Main Street, from the farmlands of our Great Plains to the inner-cities of Chicago and Los Angeles. We must fix what is broken and keep in mind what is broken the most lies within our own hearts.
Maybe there was, maybe there wasn’t a time in our nation’s history wherein genuine “brotherly-love” was status quo? (We did name a city Philadelphia…) But we must endeavor to make loving our brother, even the brother who is at odds with us today, the end-game. Everything else in winning America is truly a distant second or third to reclaiming the morale and comradery of the American people! The power of fear and hatred will not get us there. The powers of darkness have not worked throughout the whole of recorded history but when a lover shows up on the scene, committed to his/her cause, it’s as if an atom-bomb goes off in time and a generation glimpses heavens light and remembers, there is a better way.
It's easy to hate, to turn our words into violence and bitterness, it’s easy to fear, every one of us have lived too much of that life, but to truly believe!? to believe in love and God and hope, when everyone around us gives up the fight!? those are the world-changers, the history makers and the ones remembered for all eternity. Many of the greatest among us will never get the honor they deserve this side of heaven. The Bible even says so. But Great is our Reward in heaven! A little (love) kindling can set the whole world ablaze!
I pray the new leaders in DC get to read this. I pray that even if this message is not read by many – the few who read it will spread this message far and wide throughout the country! When was the last time darkness ever defeated the light? That light has a name and we live it out by loving one another. Now all love comes from God – who also has a name – and I urge you all to pray tonight, even in your beds when you are alone, that the name of God and His light is revealed to you! We can see our nation saved but we can not do it alone. And we are not alone… There is a Living God in heaven who loves us… I pray we will all run to Him.
Maybe this is the beginning of a real American Revival!!?
I Hope. And Pray.
With all my heart and devotion,
Believing for and with you all, Robert Anthony
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