Bootless Efforts

“Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.”

Matthew 5:6

When Alexis De Tocqueville wrote his observations of the United States of America just before our Civil War, he noted that what we had in domestic tranquility, economic opportunity, political organization, and public order were not innate to our democracy. In other words, no amount of harping on the freedoms of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness was by default going to grant those things. He pointed out in his time that even China bore a resemblance of our national identity. What does it take then, to make a people different? What does it require to set apart one way of life as superior than another?

De Tocqueville proposed that what made America great was not just a philosophy, but a passion to act. Not just a belief in unity, equality, or liberty but the attitude that straps on its boots and says, “If it is right in the sight of God, it is worth living and dying for.”

Lost in the Details

This is a spiritual problem. De Tocqueville was able to identify its cause and its effect, but he was not (at the time of his writing, by his own testimony) a saved man. He, like most of the world, can accurately categorize problems, but cannot obtain the victory that is only offered in Jesus Christ. What is interesting, is that even his worldly solution differs from what right and left, fringe and central political opinions offer today. He took the responsibility of maintaining the excellence of America away from the governing bodies and gave it to the politically uninvolved citizen. He replaced the emphasis on the ballot with the daily effort of a man to live out a belief in a Higher calling.

"However enlightened and however skilful a central power may be, it cannot of itself embrace all the details of the existence of a great nation. Such vigilance exceeds the powers of man. And when it attempts to create and set in motion so many complicated springs, it must submit to a very imperfect result, or consume itself in bootless efforts."

The issue he saw was that men were beginning to view the government as the most informed means of running their life. That in order to keep what they had, they must feed the machine, because it somehow knew better. That became the persuasion throughout Europe, (as they rejected God’s words for higher education) and has become the glaring danger of today that De Tocqueville foretold:

"The partisans of centralization in Europe are wont to maintain that the Government directs the affairs of each locality better than the citizens could do it for themselves;... I deny that such is the case when the people is as enlightened, as awake to its interests, and as accustomed to reflect on them, as the Americans are. I am persuaded, on the contrary, that in this case the collective strength of the citizens will always conduce more efficaciously to the public welfare than the authority of the Government."

To this might all the political activists offer a hearty, “Amen!” But a clear understanding of De Tocqueville’s observations will be shown later that involvement in the governmental process does not keep the nation alive. Boldly living out the faith of Jesus Christ does.

The opening remark about the similarity of China to us is not my jab at the system. It is the reality that the world has been watching for the past 250 years.

"The Chinese have peace without happiness, industry without improvement, stability without strength, and public order without public morality. The condition of society is always tolerable, never excellent. I am convinced that, when China is opened to European observation, it will be found to contain the most perfect model of a central administration which exists in the universe."

The best government in the universe offers only existence; it does not know, nor can it offer excellence. It cannot become anything more. And we who would look at China as a travesty of justice and a conscienceless violator of human rights must understand that THAT is the best the Gentile (whether Chinese, Babylonian, or American) organization has to offer. They have all been consumed with bootless efforts.

Habit does not produce Hunger

All of the right functions are empty without the right faith. Europe was beset with protestantism, China bound in animism, and somehow America came out of Europe with no different administration than China. I contest that it was and is the Bible that makes and keeps a people free. “And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free.” (John 8:32) No European left the old world because the government was not functioning properly. It was.

Here is where this lands: We who are entrenched in habits– good and bad– often forget what caused us to develop that habit. We get accustomed to clean living, but forget that it was the glaring uncleanness of our sin that made us strive for a more righteous standard in our lives. Conversely, someone who is made to live up to a standard that they have no conviction about will find ways to question, undermine, and circumvent it. If they have no hunger, they will hardly maintain a good habit.

“Wherefore is there a price in the hand of a fool to get wisdom, seeing he hath no heart to it?”

Proverb 17:16

Appetite demands Assuagement

So painful it is to suffer hunger, that we try to feed before it is needed. De Tocqueville recognized how hard it would be to stir up the appropriate appetite in people.

"It is difficult to point out with certainty the means of arousing a sleeping population, and of giving it passions and knowledge which it does not possess; it is, I am well aware, an arduous task to persuade men to busy themselves about their own affairs;"

But however hard the hunger pangs must strike, they must come first if a man is to be contented. The Bible says, “But godliness [1st] with contentment [2nd] is great gain.” (1 Timothy 6:6) Jesus said, “Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for righteousness.” The saying is “Necessity is the mother of invention,” and certainly no greater persuasion to awake from slumber than hunger.

We want the hunger for righteousness and the thirst for godliness to control us. That desire may be met through the means of freedom, currently available in the United States of America. But the means are not the end. To become like Christ is the goal. The truest persons are ones who know Jesus Christ and have addicted themselves to the ministry of the saints.⁵ But habit without hunger shows a demented servitude.

• Would it not be strange to visit the smoke shop every day to buy cigarettes– if you are not a smoker?
• Would it be normal behaviour to buy gasoline every week– if you do not own a car?
• Would you care what price you paid for dog food– if you had no dog?

As we are talking of a Bible conviction for living as the best way, let me confront the issue of the day: Should we suppose it normal to regulate our lives to the rituals of religion, or the the angst of the ballot box, when we have nothing lasting, eternal to live for?

The love of freedom is not a sensible motive in itself. What are you doing that requires such freedom? Why should God care what tax breaks you get? What course is your life taking that necessitates a particular president’s policies? Freedom– life, liberty, and happiness– is what the whole world wants, yet they cannot justify without receiving the Spirit of the Lord, for, “where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.” (2 Corinthians 3:17)

America has means in the pocket, yet no pangs in the soul.

We have come to a rather quick conclusion, but the application has only begun. While domestic tranquility, economic opportunity, political organization, and public order in the United States are touted as superior, they are not unique to our nation. What has given any measure of excellence is what you need to hold onto: believing and living by the Bible. The regeneration of your heart by faith in Jesus Christ causes the first Godly appetite in a sinner’s life: the hunger for the sincere milk of the Word.⁶

I fear we have slumped into a comfortable seat in this nation- one of “peace without happiness, industry without improvement, stability without strength, and public order without public morality.” All of the right ingredients, but not the wherewithal to enjoy them. We know how to maintain our quality of living, we just don’t know why. We have lost our appetite for freedom somehow.

The words of Jesus Christ seem more relevant now than ever:

“For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?”

Mark 8:36

To be continued.

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1. De Tocqueville, Alexis, DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA Volume I, “Chapter V: Necessity Of Examining The Condition Of The States—Part III” Translated by Henry Reeve, London, 1835 ↩︎
2. Ibid. ↩︎
3. Ibid. ↩︎
4. Ibid. ↩︎
5. 1 Corinthians 16:15 ↩︎
6. 1 Peter 2:2 ↩︎