Celebrating Our Freedom – Staying Free

Hello Friends, and Warm July Greetings!

This month, let’s reflect on the themes of independence and interdependence. It’s a time to celebrate our freedoms while recognizing our connections to others. I felt compelled to write this message on the two-hundred and forty-eighth anniversary of our nation’s “Independence Day” (July 4, 2024). In 1776, our nation’s brave Founding Fathers risked their lives to support the creation of “The Declaration of Independence.” They risked everything they had by signing their names to a document that expresses the ideals on which the United States of America was founded and the reasons for its separation from Great Britain.

We should always be thankful for our Founding Fathers and cherish our God-given freedoms and liberty as citizens of this great country. 

Understanding our country’s beginnings and the critical creation of the Second Amendment will give you a deeper appreciation of our nation’s philosophical and historical foundations of freedom and gun ownership. Guys, Guns, and God encourage the responsible use of firearms in shooting sports and embrace the wisdom found in the book of Proverbs.

As the author, my commitment is to help you recognize God’s unique purpose and plan for your life and to build your confidence, competence, and integrity within yourself.

Always Learning

This month’s Proverb resonates with the spirit of growth and self-improvement.

“Whoever pursues righteousness and unfailing love will find life, righteousness, and honor.”

PROVERBS 21:21 (NLT)

Meaning: This Proverb clearly states the need to pursue righteousness and have an unfailing love of God to find life and freedom, righteousness, and honor. Righteousness is the state of being right in standing with God and having moral and ethical conduct that is pleasing to Him. Honor signifies the recognition and respect that comes from living a life of integrity and goodness in God’s and others’ eyes.

Real Stories, Real Lessons

Our country is an ultimate story conceived by an unfailing love for God and a deep desire for freedom through divine guidance.

Born an American, I am blessed to be in the land of the free because of the brave. Our country was founded on liberty and equality for all. Many patriots have sacrificed everything, including their lives, to maintain our freedoms.

Freedom is the state in which people can speak, act, and pursue happiness without unnecessary external restrictions. Freedom is crucial because it leads to enhanced expression of creativity and original thought, increased productivity, and a successful life. According to religious beliefs, God granted human beings the gift of freedom.

For Adam and Eve, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil represented a choice – the choice to humbly trust God and submit themselves to His gracious rule or turn from Him and go their own way. We know which choice they made, which was wrong, and had to live with the consequences. As men, we would like to be free to make our own choices and be exempt from the consequences of our decisions. For example, we want sexual freedom but dislike sexually transmitted diseases. So, we seek ways to engineer “safe sex.” We desire freedom without consequences.

Man’s freedom to choose his actions is one side of the equation, and God’s freedom to choose the consequences is the other. We may be free to choose, but we are not free from the effects. The sin may be over in a moment, but the consequences may last a lifetime or even forever.

Just as our Founding Fathers proclaimed, they were divinely guided in creating the Constitution of the United States and the Declaration of Independence. When he talked about the ratification of the Constitution, George Washington used the following phrases: “The event is in the hand of God.”[i] “Observing the Hand of Providence…will demonstrate as visibly the finger of Providence, as any possible event in the course of human affairs can ever designate it.” [ii] (Providence is divine guidance of human events.) Our Founding Fathers risked everything, including their lives, so that we, as a nation, may be blessed with continued freedom, security, and happiness.

I hope to awaken a desire within you to proclaim, “In God, we trust freely,” and to take pride in American exceptionalism. We must recognize and share our true history to honor those who came before us. Our ancestors gave us specific values such as integrity, honor, commitment, courage, perseverance, and respect for authority and our elders. Above all, we should communicate that we are a nation founded on the Judeo-Christian belief in an Almighty God whose Providence has blessed this great country.

The image of a United States of America two-dollar bill represents its uniqueness because the US Treasury says that the two-dollar bills account for less than 0.001 percent of all currency in circulation. The two-dollar bill is the rarest currency produced in the United States, and only about 1.2 billion two-dollar bills are in circulation. [iii]

Upon closer look, we can see that this piece of paper represents much more than a unit of our currency. The front has a portrait of Thomas Jefferson, one of our Founding Fathers and a signer of the Declaration of Independence. Jefferson spoke about guarding virtue and freedom when he said, “We in America do not have Government by the majority – we have Government by the majority who participate… All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent.”[iv]

The opposite side of the bill has a portrait of the fifty-six unanimous signers from the thirteen original colonies depicting the signing of the Declaration of Independence in 1776 with our national motto, “In God We Trust.”

The final sentence in the Declaration is, “And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.”[v]

You have a unique purpose for your life that no one else has ever had. It is up to you to discover your uniqueness and use it purposefully.

Best regards,
Randy Abramovic
Author of Guys, Guns & God