Happy Monday. I hope you and yours enjoyed a wonderful Christmas Day. Next stop: New Year’s Eve and a well-deserved farewell to 2020.

I bought each of my children a 5″ tall wooden letter depicting the first letter of their first name for Christmas. On each letter, I wrote by hand this quote:

Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children’s children what it was once like in the United States where men were free.

— Ronald Wilson Reagan (1911-2004)
40th President of the United States, 1981 – 1989

I want them each to look at that letter, standing for their name, with that quote on it, and have them make a mental connection every time they see it. “Freedom must be fought for — I must fight for freedom. I must protect freedom. I must consciously pass it along to the next generation.”

The United States of America is the most powerful nation ever in the history of the world. We boast one of the wealthiest nations ever. We are one of the most free people who have ever had the experience of freedom. And it all comes from the idea that we are, by Nature and Nature’s God, born free. We arrive in life already possessing freedom as a natural right.

But as in many things, success and wealth and a history of peace and stability can lull us into a false sense of security. “We’re a Republic,” we think. “Our Founders were brilliant. They left us a country that sits between two oceans, invulnerable to attack. We the People are in charge.”

Are we? I’ll tell you what I think about us “being in charge.” I think we’re coasting on the fumes of empty principles. We know what those principles are and those principles have gotten us 244 years of a unique experiment in the annals of world history. But principles don’t simply run in perpetuity without maintenance, just like a gas engine doesn’t run forever without fuel. Eventually there are only fumes.

what country before ever existed a century & half without a rebellion? & what country can preserve it’s liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? let them take arms. the remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon & pacify them. what signify a few lives lost in a century or two? the tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots & tyrants. it is it’s natural manure.

— Thomas Jefferson (1743 -1826), Letter to William Smith
3rd President of the United States, 1801 – 1809

I’m afraid that we’re approaching one of those moments in our history when the “tree of liberty must be refreshed … with the blood of patriots & tyrants.” Each of us will have to determine whether we are willing to fight for our liberty; for the liberty of our children and our children’s children.

Let me be blunt: you have to decide. And you have to decide now what you are—and what you are not—willing to do. Where do you start?

If you’re a believer, you need to start with prayer. Sincerely seek out God’s will for you concerning the political situation in the U.S. You may want to consider how Christians in the colonies justified going to war with Britain. You must also ask yourself what God allows for when confronting evil.

Next, Christian or not, ask yourself questions like these:

• Do I believe that I am born with natural rights, including the right Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness?
• Am I free to practice my faith in public and in private without being censored or otherwise punished for my beliefs?
• Am I free to speak my mind in public and in private without being censored or otherwise punished for my speech?
• Am I more free or less free than my American ancestors?
• Do those who currently have or will have political or financial power seem more likely to enlarge my freedoms or to limit my freedoms?
• What can I do to help preserve my freedom and the freedom of my fellow Americans?
• Is my freedom and the freedom of my family and my neighbors worth fighting for?
• Am I willing to take up arms to defend my freedom or to remove from power those who would take my freedom from me?
• How will I know when government and civil power have gone too far in suppressing or otherwise imposing restrictions on my freedoms guaranteed in the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution?

We take our freedoms for granted at our peril. It is clear that we are a sharply divided people and that our politicians, with few exceptions, are more like an oligarchy than a representative government. The “free” press suppresses truth and conspires with our elected officials in spreading lies. Even private companies have become part of the “ruling class,” telling us what we can and cannot share, what we can and cannot say, what we can and cannot sell, what we must or must not do.

This is the second time this month I’ve written on a similar theme. Throw off the complacency, friends. Don’t wait for Trump to save you. Even if he somehow manages to return to the White House, it’s only for four years. We are in the midst of a struggle for our national future and right now we’re on our back with a knee on our chest, one arm pinned under us and a knife at our throat.

If that’s not enough to create some urgency, I don’t know what is.