What Does It Mean?

July 4th....is it about fireworks, picnics, swimming, parties, bbq?

Oh, it's so much more than that. And I know that in the past, I barely stopped to think about it much. But I think of it ever so much more now that the political climate in our country has changed and deteriorated.
Isn't that typical? You don't appreciate what you have until it's gone...
hopefully ours isn't gone forever. Maybe Americans will wake up and take back what this country was founded on!?
I thought this definition of what the Declaration of Independence means from wiki was good:

It says that all people naturally and equally have certain basic rights which come from God, including Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness. It says that the most important function of government is to protect these rights. That government has to have the consent of the people being governed and that those people have the right to set up their government in whatever form they think will best protect their rights. That the king of Great Britain and his government were nopt protecting the colonists rights but were taking them away. It then gives a long list of things the British had done to take away the colonists rights, including taxing them without their consent, closing down the colonial governments and sending the army to govern instead, taking away the right to trial by jury, waging war against the colonies and many other things.

Bottom line...America needs to turn back to God.
If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.
2 Chron. 7:14
I leave you today with words from the Star Spangle Banner...

Oh, say can you see by the dawn's early light
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming?
Whose broad stripes and bright stars thru the perilous fight,
O'er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming?
And the rocket's red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there.
Oh, say does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?
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Oh! thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand
Between their loved home and the war's desolation!
Blest with victory and peace, may the heav'n rescued land
Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation.
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto: "In God is our trust."
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

Our founding fathers knew that worshiping God was crucial to America. May our current leaders find this truth as well.
May American bless God--so that God can bless America!