As of this coming Sunday, our Nation will be 245 years old.  I have been a citizen of this Nation for just over 25% of that time.  That really doesn’t even seem possible.  I still consider myself to be a young man.  How can I have lived through over a quarter of our Nation’s history? 

The weird thing is that, while I know in my head that this is true, it doesn’t feel that way in my heart.  And maybe the reason for this is because I didn’t experience all those years as “history”.  “History” [at least to me] is what has happened in “the past”.  And to be more accurate about the way I think about these things, “history” [at least to me] is what happened before I was born.  But from the day I was born, I experienced every day of my life as “the present”.  And it’s difficult for me to now take all those days and years which I experienced as “the present”, and re-imagine them as “the past”, or “history”.  

I told you it was weird.

Of course, I realize and understand that I have lived through momentous times, and times of great change - times that will be, and perhaps already are, recorded into books that children will study in school as “history”.  Perhaps they are already studying as “history” the years which I experienced as “the present”.  And yes, even that thought is weird.    

I wonder if this “weirdness” is something that others have experienced?  I wonder if The Founding Fathers of our Nation, during those hot days of the summer of 1776 inside the Pennsylvania State House [now called “Independence Hall”], as they debated and struggled with the idea of declaring Independence, of forming a new nation, realized that they were, indeed, living a “present” that would be regarded and studied in the future as “historical”, and that what they were doing in declaring Independence and forming a new Nation would be perhaps the most “historical” of any event that has ever taken place on this Earth since The Resurrection of Christ? 

My guess is that these men had sufficient insight and foresight to know that what they were doing was huge and historical, and that they were the very ones who were making “history” happen.  I also guess that this knowledge was tempered with the realization that none of it would mean anything if their rag-tag Continental Army could not manage to defeat what was, at that time, the number one super-power Nation in the world – Great Britain.  Losing the Revolutionary War would have relegated the Declaration of Independence to a mere footnote, if that, in the history of the world. 

But since the reality was that their “present” did not offer much hope that it would be considered historical in the future, it is truly amazing that they were able to accomplish what they did inside that Statehouse.  Remember, the war had already been going on for over a year – and not going all that well for the Continentals - when the Declaration was signed.  The tide of the war didn’t really begin to turn in favor of the Revolutionists until George Washington and his soldiers crossed the Delaware River and defeated a large company of British mercenary soldiers near Trenton, New Jersey on Christmas Night, 1776.  Even then, the war dragged on for almost another five years, during which victory was never certain.  And victory was not actually achieved until the final surrender of the British at the Battle of Yorktown on October 19, 1781.

So, whether the events leading to the signing of The Declaration of Independence were going to end up being some of the most important in human history, or whether these events and that document would barely rank as a footnote in human history, was a question that could not be answered until those men, and everyone else even remotely involved in the Revolutionary War, continued to live out their “present”, doing their very best, until the “future” revealed the answer. 

People going about their daily lives more than two centuries ago created a wonderful “history” for us, and an amazing platform upon which we now live our “present”, and determine our “future”.  Some of those people certainly realized this even as they went about their daily lives.  And that realization, I believe, led them to do their very best, for the sake of the future. 

Perhaps the same thing is going on in our lives right now.  It is probably on a much smaller scale.  Most of us are not going to be directly involved in the momentous events of the present that are shaping the future and will be recorded in history.

But we are involved in the events of the present that are shaping the future for ourselves, and for our families, and even to some extent for our friends.  Perhaps we need to walk through life with the knowledge that we can and do have an impact on the future, that we can and do make a difference, that our best is required if the future for ourselves and our families and our friends is going to be all that it can be. 

What kind of future is your past and present building for those who come after?  In the last sentence of The Declaration of Independence, the signers state that they are taking this step “with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence”.  In other words, their trust was not in themselves, but in God.  That seems like the best starting place for your present if your future is going to be something more than a mere footnote in history.      

The Lord bless you and keep you, and be gracious to you; The Lord turn His face toward you, and give you peace on your journey.

Ambrose Ramsey | Shepherd