The Vine News

Many of us suffer under the weight of insecurity.
In 2 Samuel 9 we read the story of Mephibosheth, son of Jonathan and grandson of King Saul, hiding in fear for his life after his father and grandfather were killed in war.
Unable to trust a soul, he lived under constant threat of being exposed. We learn he was fearful and vulnerable all the time, to the point of distraction.
Despite his awful condition, there are some valuable lessons to glean from this story.

"Am I my brother's keeper?" is an age-old question raised when someone wants to declare that it is none of their business what happens to their brother or neighbor. 

The phrase is not really a question, but rather a statement that declares, "I don't know what or how my brother is doing, and I really don't care."
That seems to be the flavor of the day for those who declare that their riches are theirs and theirs alone, and that everyone else (their "brother") merely has to pull themselves up by the boot straps in order to gain anything in life.
Never mind that their riches are often built on the backs of consumers (brothers) who will never afford the life of luxury experienced by those at the very top of the pyramid. Furthermore, with no one filling out the bottom level, there wouldn't even be anything in place to support the top.
Even more disheartening, is that some who claim to be Christian have somehow overlooked, or outright ignored, God's instructions to us regarding how we are to look out for the poor and our neighbors and persons from other countries:

In the late 1970s, the Doobie Brothers had a hit single entitled, "What a Fool Believes."  In the refrain of the song, lead singer Michael MacDonald crooned in his signature velvety voice,

"But what a fool believes ... he sees

No wise man has the power to reason away..."

Last year, after almost two years of persistent foolish haranguing, President Barack Obama did what no other president in the history of our country has ever been asked or expected to do--he published a copy of his birth certificate for all the world to see to prove that he was born an American citizen. 

Those who truly had a need to see his documentation never really doubted it in the first place and had already seen it and settled the issue long ago.  So, what's really behind the original clamoring and the recent re-clamoring over the President’s birth certificate?