For the second Sunday morning in a row, I cooked breakfast on our wood stove. The crackling fire filled the house with the wonderful aroma of sizzling bacon and boiling coffee. I stuffed another stick of oak in the fire box, and sipped my coffee as I quietly stared out the window at the winter countryside. The sun’s rays breaking across the Yellowstone valley illuminating the snowy peaks of the Beartooth range were beautiful testimony of God’s creation, putting my tiny presence in humbling perspective. We may not all be believers, but He is here and has had a plan for America since our founding. Look at His tracks.

If not for God’ hand, General Washington’s 1776 Christmas Day surprise attack across the Delaware River would have been our final defeat in America’s brief quest for independence. Yet, because it was His will, the victory at Trenton was ours. Man’s timeline is much different than God’s, so this did not end our struggle. He never said freedom would be easy, only worth it, and American patriots suffered six more years before the prize of liberty had been fully earned.

The Christmas of 1777 found Washington’s forces in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, in much the same predicament as they were in 1776—cold and starving. Any rational assessment revealed it was simply a matter of time before the Continental Army would disband and go home. The Continental Congress had long since abandoned Philadelphia to the Brittish and they ignored General Washington’s repeated pleas for help. This Christmas he sat in his cold tent and penned his resignation, but before Washington could sign his letter, a ruckus in a nearby field jolted him out into the cold, snowy darkness. Could it be the mutiny of which his officers warned? As he walked from campfire to campfire he was greeted with shouts of “Hail to our Chief! May liberty prevail!” How could this be? What possessed these soldiers to press for freedom when their very sustenance was in question?

With nothing else to offer his emaciated troops, General Washington declared “May God relieve your sufferings, if Congress will not. And a good Christmas to you!” He returned to his tent and tossed his letter into the fire. The Holy Spirit was alive and well in Valley Forge on Christmas Day of 1777.

After 235 years, the freedom purchased by the sufferings of those early American patriots is traded away for free condoms, free health care, free food stamps and free cellphones. The masses are indoctrinated to worship big government as the true god and believe utopia is but one new program away. They are wrong. The recent tragedy in a kindergarten class in Connecticut shows America has lost her soul. There is but one King, and He is not in Washington D.C. If there were ever a Christmas when America needed open their hearts to the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, it is now.