I hate to be a downer on all this patriotism- I know how some Americans get carried away with it especially. But I just wanted to say something to those people who are ultra patriotic, and I'll try to make this brief (Hah!).

Two things. You Christians out there, no matter where you're from or how patriotic you think you are: your identity is in Christ alone. Your identity is not in your country, your race, your color, or anything else. Your identity lies in the One that created you, redeemed you and loves you. Satan has a field day with patriotism because it promotes disunity, in my humble opinion.

Secondly, though we are given freedoms by our government to do almost anything we want, let us not forget that Christ is the only One that can really set us free. Politicians can change their mind and renig on laws, they can take our freedom if they want to. But God will never take our freedom from sin away from us!

With that said, I don't think it's sinful to be "proud of your country" per se. I personally am thankful for living in a country where I am free to publicly worship and all the other things we're able to do without persecution, unlike China for example. And heck, I'm "American as apple pie", I like traditional American stuff, sure, why not.

But our home is not here. We are foreigners here in a foreign land, so stop getting attached to your temporary homes and focus on your eternal home!

And by the way, as I am sitting here in my house, I hear both the sound of thunder and rain along with the fireworks across town. (Which I missed because I thought it was canceled cause of the storm! Grrr!) I can't help but snicker at the symbolism that maybe is only relevant to me tonight because of what I'm writing about. While we are here celebrating our country with a man-made light show, God is revealing His awesome power through this own light show of lightning. I think I'd have to say that God won that battle on who's more impressive. :)

So much for brief..