What if?

There's a link and piece of this missing- but it was for a cool article about a Christian organization that rebuilt mosques in Serbia.

If we're such a "Christian Nation"...

I mean, would we be hurting, maiming and taking over in countries that don't want us- can you see why the rest of the world hates "Christians" if they equate US foreign policy with God's agenda? I mean- the average Muslim, who's never heard the gospel and knows the name of Jesus about the same as most Christians know the name of Jeremiah, if this person's first interactions with a "Christian nation" are having your town bombed, having soldiers come in and take away half your neighbors and relatives (and then guard them with such respectful guards as we had at Abu Graib)- who wants any part of that? And when some lucky middle easterner gets the chance to come to the US and say, study- do they not marvel at a culture that spends more on pet products each year than their home country brings in as a GDP? Can you imagine coming from a place where everyone struggles to have enough to eat, or have clean water and access to health care, only to come here and see an ad for carpeted doggie stairs so your overweight dog can crawl into your kingsize bed and watch "Desparate Housewives" with you?? Do we really wonder why they hate us?
So here comes the over simplified, rosy eyed dreamer in me (I'm giving you fair warning here). What if....
-instead of spending millions on bombs and ammunition, we spent those same millions to give everyone clean drinking water and access to electricity?
-instead of increasing troop numbers, we increased work teams that could rebuild a foreign country much like we've been rebuilding the Gulf Coast the past year and a half.
-instead of insisting on a particular type of government we actually let the people decide what they want- even if we don't like it.
-instead of just saying we're a Christian nation and continuing to export raunchy Hollywood films, TV, cigarettes and alcohol as well as army troops, instead we prayed for our enemies, sent them food and water and materials for shelter and the technology they need to catch up with us.
What if that was the way we showed God's love to this world? Am I dewy eyed enough to think there wouldn't be corruption- sure there would be- and I imagine people would still want to kill us for a little while anyway- until they figured out what we were about. I mean, I haven't heard too many stories of Red Cross workers getting shot up while handing out blankets. (Yes, I'm sure it happens- but then, it happened in New Orleans too). I imagine that if we did something that radical it would cause some major chaos-and would be so hard to do-I get that. And I have heard all the arguments for a strong military presence and deterrents and all that jazz. It's just that while I understand all of that stuff- it just doesn't seem to be working- and I'm ready for a new way of doing things- so I'll keep dreaming, and praying that God will send us some help in making his dream into our dream- and making his dream a reality.
"I asked God to make the world a better place. He responded by saying "Let's start with you."