The State of the Union

As I write these words, we are about 36 hours from President Obama’s first State of the Union speech before Congress and the nation. I took some time recently to look over State of the Union speeches dating back to 1790. Typically, Presidents have tended to describe the state of our union as “sound” or “strong”.

Given the tenuous economic condition our country is in, I am curious to see how the President will define our state of the union this year. I wouldn’t think he would want to downplay the current challenges, but at the same time, it probably wouldn’t be good for him to say “The state of our union is in the toilet.” The markets probably wouldn’t react favorably to such candor.

Of course, when Presidents evaluate the state of the Union, the benchmarks they use generally include such things as unemployment, budget deficits, inflation and other key economic factors. I’m sure they also take into consideration our standing on the world stage, including the strength of our military and our diplomatic relationships abroad.

However, I doubt that many of them give serious consideration to the spiritual state of the Union. How much do they factor “leading spiritual indicators” into their evaluation of our nation’s welfare?

I am afraid if they were to take stock of our country’s “state” using God’s standards, we wouldn’t fare well. We would likely be described as “stiff-necked” and “hard-hearted”, as the Israelites were described during the years of the wilderness wanderings. Undoubtedly, the recurring words used to describe God’s people in the days of the Judges could be our mantra as well: “Once again, [they] did evil in the eyes of the LORD.”

Like those in Haggai’s day, we plant much, but harvest little. We eat, but are never satisfied. We drink, but our thirst is not quenched. Despite the abundance of clothing, we are not warm. And we earn money only to put it in purses and wallets with holes.

We are like those whom Jesus condemned for honoring Him with their lips, while their hearts were far from Him.

If we are honest, we would have to admit that spiritually speaking, the state of our Union is fragile. We pursue the things of this world at the expense of seeking the things of God. We are more interested in our economic well-being than in our spiritual welfare. We are blind to the fact that we could gain this whole world, but lose our own soul. And God has declared that’s not a very good trade.

While it’s easy to criticize the spiritual state of our nation as a whole, let’s not lose sight of the need to conduct such an assessment of our personal spiritual condition. It does us no good to condemn those around us while falling short of God’s standards ourselves.

So, if you were standing before the nation to describe the status of your relationship with the Lord, how would you complete this sentence: The state of my spiritual condition is _____.