I seem to go through this about once a year now where I stop and reassess my reasons for writing. You see, I hate to waste someone’s time – especially my own. Because of this, I have an aversion to redundancy and stating the obvious – something frankly, anyone can do – not that I haven’t, on occasion.

And, let’s face it: The only reward that comes from this endeavor is in helping those who are concerned, confused and looking for real answers to unexplained conflicts and crises in life that are biblically explainable with a working knowledge of scripture – scripture that is increasingly ignored by those who stand before us as leaders, examples and role models.

Over much of the last decade, I have written this column for the sole purpose of warning the unsuspecting about coming changes in this country that could adversely affect lives. I saw it as a duty – a calling, if you will – one that many others like me have answered in similar fashion.

It was certainly not my life’s ambition to become a writer or columnist. I was a musician by trade – not necessarily a very good one, but enough of one to consistently put food on my table and avoid government assistance, which seems to have become quite fashionable of late.

However, under the Lord’s leading, provision and guidance, I set aside a career in music years ago to do something I saw as vastly more important: warning people of impending danger – severe changes they might not otherwise be privy to because of life’s many distractions and distortions of truth and information. I just couldn’t, in good conscience, sit by and fiddle while Rome burned. With this as a backdrop, I could also present the Gospel.

But, frankly, I’m beginning to wonder what’s the point anymore – not in presenting the Good News of Jesus Christ and calling on sinners to repentance and faith in Him – but in stating the obvious week after week about our nation’s decline.

I spent the first few months and years as a columnist warning about socialism coming to America – and that it was a two-party problem – not just something being embraced and promoted by the left.

Then I saw it in my own “conservative” pastor’s pulpit back in the late 90s and how churches around the country had been infiltrated, compromised and corrupted by the same narcissistic value system through church growth programs where, like the public school system, edification had given way to entertainment and self-restraint to self-esteem.

Then it was the economy, the doomed stock market and all that debt we were taking on with a fiat currency. What is there left to say about it now that most don’t already know? It’s all over the news!

Then it was the mainstream media lying to us from the left and then from the right. Now, newspaper subscriptions are all plummeting because few people read or believe them anymore – others just don’t care – and the remaining that do, already know what’s coming down the pike.

Television has become so silly, superficial, sadistic, sarcastic, self-indulgent, socialistic and sex-saturated, that it’s almost unwatchable. No warning needed there. Forget the network news. Only fools believe what they present each day as factual.

Now we have the so-called “Fairness Doctrine” to face, where many conservative writers and talk-show hosts fear being silenced by liberals in search of an audience. But, with both Christians and conservatives now embracing the left’s own principles and practices, why warn anybody about that?

So, I hope you will forgive me for being a little self-indulgent myself this week as I, once again, consider where to go from here. I guess I’m just thinking out loud.

But, most of all, I hope you will pray for me, that whatever direction I take in the coming year, above all else, it would be the Lord’s will, because I’m still persuaded that nothing else really matters.

© 2009 Paul Proctor            Click here to lift up this brother in prayer by sending him an email

Paul Proctor, a rural resident of the Volunteer state and seasoned veteran of the country music industry, retired from showbiz in the late 1990's to dedicate himself to addressing important social issues from a distinctly biblical perspective. As a freelance writer and regular columnist for NewsWithViews.com, he extols the wisdom and truths of scripture through commentary and insight on cultural trends and current events. His articles appear regularly on a variety of news and opinion sites across the internet and in print.

E-Mail: watchman@usa.com