History is more than memorizing dates and names.

History tells a story.

America has a unique story.

It's not one of perfection. Nor one that is error-free. The American story filled with both good and not-so-good chapters, moments which brings both pride and shame.

Some focus solely on the good. Others solely on the bad. However, focusing on one extreme or the other doesn't tell the whole narrative.

But American history is still our story. It defines us and gives our culture meaning.

I have walked through the town of Yorktown. I experienced Monticello as well as Jefferson's slave quarters.

I have stood at both headwaters of the Missouri River as well as its mouth into the Mississippi over 2000 miles later, marking the rough boundaries of the Louisiana Purchase that was marked by Lewis and Clark.

I have experienced the battlefields of Gettysburg and Vicksburg which marked the turning points of the Civil War, and Appomattix where Robert E. Lee surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant.

I stood atop the hill upon which General Custer paid the final consequences for his careless judgments as well upon the field along the Wounded Knee Creek.

I have visited beaches of Utah and bloody Omaha, as well as walked among the bomb craters and bunker remains atop Pont du Hoc in Normandy, France.

They tell the stories of grave errors often found in a broken humanity, but also of divine miracles and grace as this nation stumbled its way through history like a lanky adolescent which formed and defined our unique culture that has been recently rediscovered and celebrated by European and Asian World Cup soccer fans.

This is the American story.

A story based on the idea that our basic rights come from our Creator, not from government. These rights are absolute, and they cannot be taken away.

It is an experiment that started 250 years ago today and endured hardships and countless close calls that could have changed the course of human history.

But we have persevered.

My prayer is we don't give up on this great experiment. America, I pray, has much more to show the world in the centuries to come.

Happy 250th birthday, USA!

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

I have been called stupid more times than I can even count.

I have a bachelor’s and master’s degree, and I am 60 minutes short of a post-graduate degree. Still, I have been called stupid by individuals with just a bachelor’s degree and others with Ph.D.’s, and even by some with no degree at all.

Usually, it is because of my political opinions or my identity as a follower of Jesus. For those antagonistic to my personal views and who know my story, my stupidity is simply evidenced by those final 60 minutes of my postgraduate program (Note, even though my supervisors said my thesis was ready to go, it was rejected by my examiners. This served as the inspiration for my book “Losers Like Us.)

Because of those disastrous 60 minutes in England, I have been hesitant to engage in anything controversial because of that one measly hour. In the back of my mind, I brace myself for that particular insult.

However, even when nothing is said, the dread of those 60 minutes has haunted me since 2008—17 years ago.

Still, sometime during those years, society has changed in ways that helped me better appreciate and be thankful that it worked out that way.

Something has evolved in our society in the last five years or so that has actually broadened my perception. I was hoping to teach at a university years ago. I wanted to be the “expert” in my field whatever that was. I wanted my ideas to be in demand.

But that is not all it’s cracked up to be. Since COVID, the idea of expertise has had its mask ripped off its face. As much as they don’t want to admit it, experts are realizing that we think they’re just as stupid as we are. Sure, they have more letters after their name and can throw around big words when diminutive words would do. But the one thing missing in most ivory towers is common sense.

The last movie the late great Gene Hackman was in was a little-known comedy called “Welcome to Mooseport.” Hackman played a retired U.S. president who settles in the small town to build his presidential library and enjoy the pleasures of retirement. However, the town needed a mayor and approached him to run for the office.

After all, who wouldn’t want a former president as mayor of the town?

After he agreed to run, a dude who ran the local hardware store, played by Ray Romano, threw his hat into the ring.

On one side there is the former president, an expert in his field of running the United States, overshooting the runway on every issue, promising to organize a blue-ribbon panel to study the issue of a high number of car accidents at a particular intersection. On the other hand, there is a local yokel suggesting a tree should be pruned back a little so traffic could better see the stop sign.

Thus, the current state of the “expert.”

In March 2021, after the COVID lockdown, the magazine The Atlantic published a piece called “Following your gut isn’t the right way to go.”

It was the subtitle that got my attention: “The experts had a rough year. We still have to trust them. “

The experts haven’t done anything to redeem themselves. This week, I saw a video of a congressional hearing in which a Senator asked an expert if men could get pregnant. The expert, a “medical doctor” promptly replied yes. When the Senator challenged her on this, she responded with “I am the expert here.”

Now, I realize that I only got a C in high school Health class, but I can totally understand from that is that experts have a ways to go before I or anyone else take any advice from them.

Although I know it won’t happen, we should probably retire the idea that someone is stupid because we don’t agree with them politically, metaphysically, or theologically.

Like every other term that is overused, “stupid” no longer has the same impact it’s had since, I don’t know, the third grade.

Nowadays, if someone calls me stupid, whether it’s in the media, on a social media post, or to my face, I just ignore them. It’s far easier to do once you realize that personal insults thrown your way are simply evidence the “other side” has no response to your argument.

Still, the truth is I am stupid.

I’ll own it.

We all are.

Even the ones who lack the self-awareness to admit it.

But this is where it gets good.

When my postgraduate studies went up in flames, I locked on to 1 Corinthians 1:27-29. It has been my life verse for well over a decade:

“But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him.”

If you’re a Christ-follower and someone calls you stupid—as they will—own it.

God has this extraordinary methodology through history to use us losers—stupid people by the world’s eyes—to do great things.

Without Jesus, one’s stupidity will do nothing more than just be stupidity.

On my office wall hangs a vivid photograph entitled, “Phares dans la Tempete, La Jument.” It shows a lighthouse keeper at La Jument reef, standing in the door of his lighthouse just as a towering wave nearly engulfs the structure from behind.

On December 21, 1989, a powerful storm smashed into the area, hitting the lighthouse with gale force winds and with waves reaching up to 30 meters (nearly 100 feet) high. During the night, the massive waves crashed through the lighthouse’s lower windows, flooding its living quarters and forcing the keeper to escape to the lantern room at the top of the lighthouse.

The next morning, despite dangerous flying conditions, a photographer named Jean Guichard hired a helicopter so he could photograph the dramatic storm from the air. The lighthouse keeper, Théodore Malgorn, heard the approaching helicopter and thought it was his rescuers. So he opened the door and stepped outside.

That was the moment the giant wave slammed into the lighthouse.

That was the moment Guichard took the shot.

Fortunately, the keeper was able to slip inside and shut the door, just before it was completely covered.

This famous picture of safety in the storm was given to me by my wife, shortly after life swept me into chaos. As I endured the greatest turmoil of my life, I took solace in looking at it, wondering what the lighthouse keeper felt that night. Did he shake with fear as the wind and waves whipped into a deadly frenzy, crashing again and again into his tiny stone tower?

Did his heart pound in his chest as freezing water shattered his windows and poured into his home? Did he pray to God for survival as he fled to the lantern room—the very last refuge he had?

That night in the lighthouse, the keeper must have felt very unsure of his own safety. Yet in the whole vast ocean, the lighthouse was the safest place of all.

Like the lighthouse keeper, Jesus once faced a violent storm. After a day of ministry beside the Sea of Galilee, he and his disciples set out by boat to cross to the other side. But according to Mark 4:37-38:

“A furious squall came up, and the waves broke over the boat, so that it was nearly swamped. Jesus was in the stern, sleeping on a cushion. The disciples woke him and said to him, ‘Teacher, don’t you care if we drown?’”

Note the sequence of the disciples’ reactions. Like most of us, first they panic; only later do they ask the God of the universe for help.

But Jesus does not punish them for this lapse by withholding that help; instead he immediately commands the elements to “Be still!”—and they obey. Only then does he turn to his disciples and ask, “’Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?’” (v. 39-40).

The truth is, it is one thing to trust God when things go well. But it is another to trust him from the center of the storm, when our world is upended.

And our world is upended now.

It is a dumpster fire.

When life is like this, we must take refuge in our Creator, who is far bigger than anything a broken world can throw at us.
No matter what happens—even if we experience sickness or death—we are not spiraling helplessly through stormy seas. Instead, we are secure in our lighthouse as the storm rages around us.

We are safe in the arms of Christ.