Let's ask.

If "God bless America” means “Hooray for America,” we have a problem.

Don't get me wrong; America is still a land of freedom and opportunity. But our collective pursuit of happiness without boundaries has brought us to a place where your freedom to have it your way is stepping on my freedom to have it mine, and vice versa.

Isn’t that what constitutional law is all about, drawing boundaries so that my pursuit of happiness does not infringe upon yours? That is messy when our goals are at cross-purposes. And underlying our goals is our ideologies—the values and beliefs that define what we want.

Your freedom to have it your way is stepping on my freedom to have it mine, and vice versa.

What is a Good Life, after all? Is it getting everything you want, the pursuit of pleasure without boundaries? Is it domination, power, winning? Does it have to do with the accumulation of stuff? Is it serving a greater purpose?

Sixteen thundering dog-feet interrupt my reflection and illustrate my point. My right to a little quiet reflection in the early hours is about to come into conflict with a dog’s right to potty in the fresh air, and my husband's right to sleep in. I feel the tension rising in my body, and my jaw clenches a little.

Who will win? And how resentful will I be if I'm the loser?

The tensions simmering in our American culture are so much bigger than personal space. And the last two years have turned up the heat, burned up our reserves, and left many of the things we value stuck to the bottom of the frying pan. We are angry. We didn’t get what is our right. What's wrong with the world is out in the open and in our face. And we want to pick up the frying pan and clobber someone with it.

What if “God bless America” is not a congratulatory high-five, but an actual plea?

But what if “God bless America” is not a congratulatory high-five, but an actual plea? “God, bless America.”

Our church is currently exploring the biblical book of James. The fourth chapter is beautiful for this fourth of July. It could have been written this week in America instead of 1,972 years ago by James, the brother of Jesus.

It starts like this:

What causes conflicts and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from the passions at war within you? You crave what you do not have; you kill and covet, but are unable to obtain it. You quarrel and fight.

Don’t we know it! We (the collective “we”) complain, whine, strive, fight, demand. We shout louder and louder, and pretty soon our elbow nudges become thrown punches.

But maybe there is a better way. James says:

You do not have, because you do not ask.

And when you do ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may squander it on your pleasures.

I remember Katie Couric saying something like, "Why do we gripe and complain so much when we could just ask?" Maybe today, July the Fourth, is the day to just ask.

“God, we need you. We’re kind of a mess. Can you step in and bring change, sanity, compassion? God, would you bless America?”

You do not have, because you do not ask.

The rest of the chapter is worth pondering, too, because in it James unpacks the pathway forward. His simple words call us to:

1. Individual humility

2. Resistance of evil

3. Repentance

4. Personal mourning

5. Non-judgment

Here’s how he says it (I’m quoting here from James 4:6-12, the Berean Study Bible version):

God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.

Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Grieve, mourn, and weep. Turn your laughter to mourning, and your joy to gloom.

Humble yourselves before the Lord, and He will exalt you.

Brothers, do not slander one another. Anyone who speaks against his brother or judges him speaks against the law and judges it. And if you judge the law, you are not a practitioner of the law, but a judge of it. There is only one Lawgiver and Judge, the One who is able to save and destroy. But who are you to judge your neighbor?

That’s it in a few, simple words that we could chew on for a long, long time.

But lest our thoughts end in inaction, let’s take one, simple, first step right now on the Fourth of July. “You do not have because you do not ask,” James says. Let’s ask.

Whatever you say after these three words is up to you, but you can begin your prayer this way:

“God, bless America....”