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Real Answers™
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Copyright: ©2009 William Cripe Sr.
600 words

STIMULUS PACKAGE WILL STIMULATE MORE HEART ACHE

By: William Cripe Sr.

The only thing the current "stimulus package" is going to stimulate is more despair and more economic decline.  Neither people nor nations can ignore God's perfect counsel for life with impunity.

In one of the earliest books of the Bible a program for providing for the less fortunate was instituted by the Almighty.  It reads:  "Now when you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap to the very corners of your field, neither shall you gather the gleanings of your harvest…you shall leave them for the needy and for the stranger. I am the Lord your God."  (Leviticus 19:9-10)

God commanded His people not to pick the ground and the plants clean so that when the harvest was finished there would still be enough left behind to which the poor could avail themselves.  The glaring disparity between this divinely instituted welfare versus our modern day disaster is that the poor were still required to go to the fields, gather and transport their crops, and prepare their food.  It wasn't simply handed to them.  This not only alleviated the physical need, but it permitted the individual to exercise his divinely mandated responsibility to his family thus retaining his dignity in the process.

One of the major deficiencies of our present system of welfare is that it robs people of their inalienable right to function as God intended.  From the very outset God hallowed mankind's endeavor by assigning him the "work" of cultivating the garden and keeping it maintained. (Genesis 2:15)

This Divine assignment to "work the garden" was an integral part of mankind's nature which remains.  If this innate drive is impeded--even by well intentioned bureaucrats--the results must necessarily be disastrous. 

Indiscriminately throwing billions of dollars at people without a way for them to live out their humanness, forces them to be something less than what God intended. Consequently, our system is inhumane with a bounteous harvest of despair. You cannot oppose the wisdom of God and anticipate a positive outcome. 

Certainly, there is a time to come to the aid of the truly unfortunate; the innocent bystander; the person whose house burns down; the child taken ill with inadequate insurance; the orphaned children.  There is even wisdom for allowing a season of aid to the person diligently working to further his educational or vocational training.  Yet even the Bible makes a pointed distinction between the person who will not work and the person who cannot work.  "For you yourselves know how you ought to follow our example, because we did not act in an undisciplined manner among you, nor did we eat anyone's bread without paying for it, but with labor and hardship we kept working night and day so that we might not be a burden to any of you. . . . For even when we were with you, we used to give you this order: if anyone will not work, neither let him eat." (2 Thessalonians 3:7-10)

What should be obvious is that the system of welfare in this country has proven more of a curse than compassion. The difference between wise welfare versus federally subsidized slothfulness is the difference between lending a helping hand versus perpetuating a way of life which dehumanizes.  If we really care for the less fortunate, this nation must offer people what they need, not what they want.  If we are able to accomplish only this, we will be on our way to becoming a nation of genuine compassion with a concern for true liberty and justice for all.

"Real Answers™" furnished courtesy of The Amy Foundation Internet Syndicate. To contact the author or The Amy Foundation, write or E-mail to: P. O. Box 16091, Lansing, MI 48901-6091; amyfoundtn@aol.com

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