Thank You Veterans

By Chad Robichaux
This week in Manhattan, joggers stepped out for their daily exercise, children boarded school buses to start their day off of learning…meanwhile a (self-claiming) Islamic Jihadist armed himself with a Home Depot pickup truck, shouted “Allah Akbar” and proceeded to run down these innocent joggers, and pedestrians. He ending his rampage of destruction as he targeted and crashed into the side of a school bus full of children!
This was an act of sheer evil – with only one intent – to murder – he killed 8 and wounded over a dozen others. His motive was to control and take away freedom through fear and intimidation, and simply put, that is terrorism!  It isn’t about Islam – it’s about power – it’s about selfish control over freedom.
Myself, along with many of our military warriors have been in places like Afghanistan, where this violent and evil ideology is used to control people beliefs, and to rob God‘s people of religious liberties. In fact, 75% of the world’s population lives under the threat of religious persecution.  The US State Department lists 60 countries whose governments persecute Christianity, but in spite of that, in the greatest nation on earth, we can still freely worship our Lord and Savior! Isn’t that awesome!
Why is that?
Why do we get to be the 25% of the world that can freely worship?  Why won’t that evil Jihadist’s act of terror in NY take that freedom away from us? I’ll tell you why…because at this very moment there are brave men and woman around the globe fighting to preserve our freedom!
They fight to keep that evil from being a daily event in America… and as we celebrate Veteran’s Day, we should be especially grateful!  During this is Veterans Day, take a chance to pause for a moment and instead of reflecting on negative things in our county, recognize the freedoms we do have, as you honor those who fought for those freedoms.
Since 1775 our military heroes have fought, bled, and died for freedom – including our freedom to worship! Be sure to say “thank you” to a veteran this weekend!  While military folks appreciate being thanked for their service, the greatest way we can show our gratitude is to recognize and embrace those freedoms that our warriors provide us. To live a life that reflects and honors the freedoms we share.