Apps and Freedom

An story from Bill, over at “the zen parent,” sums up something that many people do not realize about Christmas…

…We were giving Christmas presents to my two-year-old niece. On Christmas Day, we presented her with a doll and baby carriage. And she was thrilled. She was all smiles and hugging the doll as if it were the only thing that mattered in the whole world. If that had been the only thing she’d gotten that Christmas, she would have been perfectly content.

But it was just the beginning. Gift after gift was laid at her feet. Tearing through the wrapping paper of each successive present, I could see the joy in her face give way to a kind of numbness. Where the doll and carriage had been special, now nothing was, just a growing pile of things and very little time to feel anything special about any of them.

The image haunts me still…

There are a lot of good parents out there. Most are well meaning when they give their kids a lot of toys for Christmas (or birthdays). But, I think we need to look at the amount of gifts we give our children.

We all want our kids to be happy, but sometimes happiness is not “more.” Sometimes, happiness happens by a trip to the sledding hill, a snow fort, or maybe just a big hug from a parent. Happiness comes from fellowship, not from a pile of toys or other items.

Jessica and I will be getting our daughters Christmas presents this year, but we will try to keep it in perspective. After all, this season is not about how much you can get.  This is a season of friendship, socializing, and most of all, of a chance to celebrate the birth of Jesus.

Let’s have a wonderful Christmas season and focus on the things that matter most!

Note: This is a speech I gave to the 39b Republicans of Northern Dakota County on October 6, 2011.

I want to start by expressing my deepest gratitude to the many of you that worked so hard with my campaign last election. I also think special thanks need to go out to Mark Westpfahl for his efforts. He is a good friend and a great organizer. I would like to hope that while politics brought this great group of individuals together, it is friendship and neighborhood that binds us.

I have been pondering my role in this amazing process over the last several months. My mission, as a candidate, was threefold:

1. Give hope to a local party that seemed to have given up on the possibility of an electoral win in the legislature.
2. Aid in the defeat of the anti-freedom agenda of the current state representative.
3. Reform our party from within. Restore the party to once again embrace the freedoms that our founders recognized as God given and inalienable.

I think we as a group went a long way in accomplishing the first goal. We came closer with the second goal, and the jury is still out on the third. It is this third goal that has so concerned me of late. For if we give hope for electoral victory, but those victories are marred by individuals, who, for good or evil reasons, reject the freedoms we sought to uphold, what real good did we accomplish?

For years, I have told myself that I must accept the occasional missteps of members of our party who vote to steal my freedoms through tax increases and the like. But should I just accept this? My contention is that I should not. Therefore, I thought it prudent to pour my efforts into teaching members of our party why they should vote in support of freedom. I toiled to teach my fellow party members about the nature of freedom and the nature of economics. It is only with a solid footing that one will not be swayed.

Despite efforts by many like minded people, the third goal has been the most difficult to achieve.

With a supposed majority on the city school board, we managed to vote to put a tax increase on the ballot. The one officially endorsed school board member who currently sits on the board, ironically chose not vote. The other endorsed candidate that is running formally endorsed the tax increase last month.

What happened to living within our means? The promoters of such a tax increase stated that this will save the district money. Then I question the need for a ten year increase in taxes.

What happened to standing up for the rights of the individual? Do homeschoolers or private-schoolers enjoy the same luxuries of a state sponsored tablet computer? Or are their families going to be unnecessarily robbed to give to the public school child that is somehow deemed more valuable to society?

The inconvenient truth is that most residents of this town cannot afford such amenities for themselves, yet the school board deems it fit that they request to take from those who have not money or power in order to benefit those who have power.

Then I look to our city council.  Sometimes I feel that our endorsed candidates on the council vote less in favor of freedom than those on the other side do. We own a golf course and a fitness center, which both combined bleed in excess of one million dollars a year. (I do thank Tom Bartholomew for being a strong advocate against such government overreach.)

But that is not even the core of the issue. The issue is whether government should own such institutions. Our founding fathers did not think so. I don’t think so. Yet many of our duly endorsed candidates have chosen that very path; and for what reason? It has been for convenience and for reputation sake.

We subsidize multimillion dollar private businesses so that they can expand on the city residents’ paychecks. Yet we say we stand for liberty. When did liberty mean we take from those who earn their income and give to that which seduces those in power?

One need not search hard to find members of this very political party serving special interests, rejecting state and individual sovereignty and reducing the definition of freedom to mean “support of the state.”  There were corporate handouts, laws restricting freedom of speech, laws manipulating the private markets, and even laws that are so intrusive that compliance has caused small businesses to fail around our country. These were all passed with overwhelming support by members of our very own party who said they must compromise their values for our own good.

Our national representatives have been difficult to communicate with. Their staffers often filter messages as to not “upset the congressman.” Well, if the congressman is voting badly, I don’t think we should worry about upsetting the congressman. Our freedoms were paid for with the blood of our ancestors, yet are given away with an “aye” vote and the stroke of a pen. I want our congressman to agonize over every intrusion of freedom before his “aye” vote.

We do have a good deal of promising figures rising up and a few that have been with us a long time. I eagerly wait for them to increase in number and restore freedom to our nation.

From the examples above, I have serious concerns over the state of our movement. Those who understand freedom lightly have no place being endorsed by the liberty loving residents of this community. It is the elected officials who are tasked with protecting liberty. They are not tasked with creating it, nor organizing it, nor distributing it, just protecting it. That is all; just protecting it.

C.S. Lewis, a brilliant man from the twentieth century once said:

“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. They may be more likely to go to Heaven yet at the same time likelier to make a Hell of earth. Their very kindness stings with intolerable insult. To be ‘cured’ against one’s will and cured of states which we may not regard as disease is to be put on a level of those who have not yet reached the age of reason or those who never will; to be classed with infants, imbeciles, and domestic animals. “

One might say that I am making a big deal out of little votes. But may I remind you that our entire world was damaged by the small act of taking a bite of fruit. The corruption that comes when power is exercised wrongly is costly to extinguish, once ignited.

I want my children to have a good education, good places to grow and be nurtured, and good places to buy food and clothing. But more importantly, I want them to grow up in a nation that is free. I want them to experience a community that is free. I want them to understand that their rights and their responsibilities come from God and are not dictated to them by any man or institution.

The endorsements given by this body and the actions of certain endorsed candidates have caused me to second guess the nature of my relationship with the local party.  There are times when the bonds of a good and well meaning association need to be thrown off, in order to secure that which is more precious than the institution itself.

For me, the time is now. It is with much consideration and with a heavy heart that I announce my resignation from duties to the local party. Never have I believed more strongly in the rights that God alone has given us, but my efforts are only given to the party as long as the party remains the instrument for protecting such freedoms.

It may be for a time, or it may be longer, but until there is evidence that the cause of freedom can be advanced through this broken apparatus, I will choose to withhold and limit my dealings with this body.

I would remind you that the party is simply a means to an end. As a nation is a means to an end. The end of this party, the end of this nation, is the protection of our inalienable rights and freedoms. There is no addendum on this. I pledge to work for causes which support this end, but hold allegiance to no body; only to God, to my family, and to the inalienable freedoms that our founders gave their lives to uphold.

With that, I hope that our friendship continues. The people of this institution are the part that I cherish, not the institution itself. I wish you all the best and thank you for the time that I could work with each of you in advancing our cause.

In liberty and friendship and at peace with all,

Terry Pearson

I just finished watching an amazing short documentary (about 30 minutes) by Ray Comfort. He interviewed several people, asking them a series of challenging questions.

In one of the first difficult questions, Comfort explains that the Nazi’s would bury people in trenches after an execution, even though some were not dead. He asked person after person if they would run the bulldozer if someone pointed a gun to their head and ordered them to.

Watch this video to find out what their responses were…

After the video, check out this website for a more detailed description…

It would seem there is something of a national phenomena sweeping the country. People, from both sides of the aisle are declaring themselves to be “libertarian.”

One interesting factor in this movement is the rise of the Christian Evangelical libertarian. In recent history, these terms may have been as polar opposites as East and West. But today, individuals are deciding that the proper politics of an Evangelical Christian is to be libertarian.

One such person, Jay Polk, is a Bible believing Christian who also chairs the Libertarian Party of Tennessee.  See his story below.

Polk makes a point that Jesus would probably not endorsed libertarianism, or any other faction or political party in this instance. What Jay Polk is getting at is that the most moral society is one where they submit to Jesus on their own free will.

John Stossel once said “I used to be a Kennedy-style “liberal.” Then I wised up. Now I’m a libertarian. But what does that mean? When I asked people on the street, half had no clue.”

Most of us are in the same boat. Is the libertarian an Ayn Rand supporter? Are they a reader of Mises? Do they support anarchy? Are they in support of home schooling? Do they drink raw milk?

The answer to this series of questions is yes. And no.

The fact is that libertarianism is a rather vague term, which roughly means that you believe coercive power should be limited, whether that power could accomplish good or evil.

Most libertarian thinking individuals fear the “worst that could happen” more than they anticipate the “good that could be done” when someone hold a certain power over another person.

Historically, this aversion towards the collection of power has merit. Societies that amass power tend toward state worship and servitude. Such practices create a very powerful, yet very corrupt state, eventually leading to the downfall of a civilization.

Christians, like other people, have this temptation to use power to advance their causes because, after all, they “won’t abuse that power.”  And yet, nation after nation has seen the consequences of giving one man, or group of men so much power.

Jacqueline Otto, over at Common Sense Concept, has a very good article on Christian libertarians. She references a number of scriptures that show that Christianity is about voluntary submission to Jesus. The whole nature of a relationship with God is that the relationship exists on your own volition.

This meshes with the core concepts of libertarianism. The core belief of a libertarian is to reject the use of force on others. They also have a tremendous respect for logic and for the various intricacies of human nature. Jesus never commanded the Christian church to” go out and make subjects of the Christian mission.” He commanded Christians to “go out and make disciples of all nations.”

The only true relationship is one that is entered into by your own free will. As a Christian I choose to support liberty wherever possible because I believe that our message is strongest when our fellow Christ followers arrived there, not by coercion, but by their own choosing.

Do you have a blog and consider yourself a Christian Libertarian? If so, post a comment with a link to your blog!

Today we have a guest blogger, long forgotten by many. His opinions on the nature of rights are considered radical by many, but his words ring true none-the-less. I present to you a post by Mr. T. Jefferson…

When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. — And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.

On Wednesday, I read “Daniel and the Roaring Lions” to Abigail. It is a little Arch book of the story usually referred to as “Daniel and the Lion’s Den.”

I had read the book several times to her, with its nice rhymes and all, but she has began to ask questions about why things happen. So I took the opportunity to explain to her more details about the story. My explanation to our three year old went something like this:

Daniel knew that God wanted him to talk to God every day. So Daniel always did just that. One day, some bad people got the king to say that no one could talk to God anymore. If they did, those people would be put in a cage of hungry lions that would try to hurt them.

At this point, she seemed very concerned. I asked her what she would do. Would she still talk to God every day? Or, would she listen to the king and stop talking to God? She thought about it for a long time and eventually said that she did not know what she would do.

I had the opportunity to explain to her that we always need to do what is right. If anyone, even a king, tells you to do something that God would not want you to do, you should not do it.

We then talked about how God protected Daniel because he did what God had told him. But even if God did not protect Daniel, he still would have done the right thing.

She pondered this for a while. I could tell she was deep in thought.

It is tough lesson for a three year old to comprehend, but an important one. I want my daughter to understand throughout her being that God gives you rights as an individual. He also gives you responsibilities.

While we should obey our “kings” whenever possible, they are not the final word on right and wrong. If God has given a right or a duty to a person, no man or government has the right to take it away.  Our founders knew this and chose to acknowledge these rights to be derived from our Creator and not from a state.

What is the meaning of the pledge of allegiance? Is it appropriate for individuals to reject saying the pledge of allegiance? Furthermore, is it appropriate for individuals to recite such an all encompassing pledge?

These thoughts have been deep on my heart recently. I began wondering about the meaning and purpose of the pledge. I began looking into Biblical and philosophical positions on the pledge and considered what the motivation is for saying it, and whether it is always completely appropriate.

This moral dilemma was nagging at me. Given the dilemma, I did what anyone would do. I turned to Google. In doing so, I cam across an interesting commentary by Jim Perry.  The article is entitled “What I Expect My Child To Learn From Not Saying the Pledge of Allegiance.”

I take words very seriously and feel it is beneficial to have an intellectual conversation about the words we use. If there is a government and societal requirement to recite something, we should continually question our reasons and our motives for doing so. Our government expects us to say this oath before each meeting, at the start of the school day, etc. I feel great harm has been done throughout history because individuals blindly accept things without raising questions on issues such as this.

The pledge may be valid and appropriate, then again, it may not. Culturally, it is completely unacceptable to discuss the relevance and purpose of the pledge in a skeptical manner, but I really feel like we need to have this discussion.

Please comment on your opinions on this after the article. I want each of your opinions on this because I really do want to think through some of this and have that debate. Open discussion is always better than blind acceptance in important matters such as this.

Here are my concerns with the pledge of allegiance:

1. Blind recitation of any pledge or oath just brings images of gulags, re-education, and dead religions. Reciting pledges simply because a culture or a state demands it only demonstrates one’s tendency to submit to another power. While submission to some may be merited (i.e. submission to God), most submission is just an acknowledgement that another entity has forced you into a place where you must do as you are told or face serious consequences.
2. A blanket submission to a country diminishes your allegiance to God. As written, the pledge almost seems to imply that our submission to God comes through our submission to our country. While I believe in following the laws when possible, a person who is so tied to the allegiance to a state would have to acknowledge that their true lord may be the state and not God Himself.
3. If I make a pledge to “the flag of the United States of America and to the republic,” that is a very serious commitment. I do not want to make a commitment that I may have to go back on. It seems more and more that our nation’s laws conflict with what God would direct a person to do. We cannot serve two masters. While we can live in the nation and respect its laws, if laws conflict with our beliefs, as mandated by our creator, it is our duty to oppose them. How can we, on the one hand pledge our allegiance to God, while on the other, pledge to our country without a condition attached to it.
4. Pledging to a flag seems to border idolatry. I am an evangelical Christian who has a serious concern if I put anything to the level of near deity. My pledge is to God alone, and because of God, my pledge is to build my family in a Godly fashion, to share the message of Jesus, to respect my fellow man, and to live in peace with others. Some may argue that we must “give Caesar what is Caesar’s” but my counter would be that such a strong pledge of allegiance is not Caesar’s to have. That sort of unconditional allegiance is reserved for God alone.
5. I respect the idea of a republican form of government, of the rights of individuals, and of the honoring of agreements between our fellow man. However, it does a disservice to these ideals when we sum them up into a physical object that we solute to. It diminishes the true power of the American experiment that we embrace.
6. A pledge to a union that is indivisible is a denial of states rights and of the reality of the situation. The union is only as strong as the commitment that the individual states made to abide by the constitutional intent of the union. When the breakdown of respect for the constitutional agreement takes place, there should be a natural loosening of ties within the union. This is our “miner’s canary.” The only reason this does not occur is that the federal government forces the offended states back into submission. The framers intended a weak union to prevent this from happening. The pledge we recite implies a permanent and strong union, which in my opinion, is designed to force submission of the states to a federal normalcy.
7. The pledge is specifically targeted at children. While I am all about teaching children our national heritage, I want them to take ownership in our history, not because they blindly recited a pledge over and over, but because they truly thought through the same issues that our founders thought through. Blind recitation makes subjects, intellectual ownership makes citizens.

Once again, I want your opinion. It is something that has been pulling at my heart for a while. I respect the reader’s of this blog. A couple years ago, I would have had a knee jerk reaction of calling such questions treasonous. I believe it not to be so now, but I want input from you. Please reply with any comments, good or bad below. If you do your own blog post or Facebook note, link to it, I want to see it!

I will end by saying this. I love the freedoms that our country is founded on. The founders of our nation were geniuses ahead of their time. They changed the world because they stood on principles, whether or not they were popular. These founders challenged the very fabric of western thought and made their world a better place. They created a nation that respected liberty and justice for all, and for that, we can all be grateful.

By bringing this up for debate, I hope to, in a small way, encourage that sort of continual dialog that helped the founders formulate the logical ideas that created the bedrock for our nation.

Envy – Sorrow for another person’s good – Thomas Aquinas.

Most people think that “envy” is synonymous with greed. However, envy is quite a different animal entirely. When a person is greedy, their actions might hurt others to produce a gain for himself. However, when a person is envious, they seek to bring destruction on another, even if it costs them more in the process.  Envy occurs when hate of another’s success trumps logical reason and healthy self interest.

In Dante’s Inferno, the punishment for the envious was to have their eyes sewn shut with wire because they had gained pleasure from simply seeing others brought to suffering. It is a powerful symbol of how detestable envy is.

Envy is a major problem with our society today. In fact, it has been a major plague on governments for centuries. It is a cancer of ideas that eats away at the civil discourse of a nation, plunging it into vengeful and foolish actions. Class warfare, unfair taxes, regulations that punish success, can all be seen as manifestations of envy in modern America.

A democracy, where the majority are driven by envy, cannot remain a free society. Such nations are driven to radical ideologies like communism, socialism, and fascism. Even in our own country, the idea that “someone has to be in control” of every action, has its roots in envy.

States that engage in legislation by envy do so at their own expense. They often destroy businesses, reduce societal wealth, and ruin the future of their nation.

Now, there is often a symbiotic relationship between greed and envy. The greedy usually cannot secure power without motivating a large part of the population to rise up in envious retribution against the “other” side. Once the greedy can manipulate the populace, their “minions” are so blinded by hate (for whatever the popular group to hate is at the time), that they work for free.  In the end, the greedy gain at the expense of those who let envy get the best of them.

So the moral of the story: Check your heart and mind the next time you feel your blood boil at someone’s success. Do you have a legitimate reason for anger, or are you making yourself a slave to envy?

If you can, turn that energy toward a productive outcome and make your own success story! Choose to build up, rather than tear down. You and your neighbors will all be better for it!

I heard a song by Kutless today called “What Faith Can Do.” I think it is a message people need to hear. I have known people from drug adicts, to murderers (yes, you read that right, I knew a guy who was in prison for a while and turned his life around when he got out), to depressed and down people.

In any case, the constant has been that they believed that it was all over and there was no hope. In all these cases, God restored their lives.

Be encouraged…

Everybody falls sometimes
Gotta find the strength to rise
From the ashes
And make a new beginning

Anyone can feel the ache
You think it’s more than you can take
But you’re stronger
Stronger than you know

Don’t you give up now
The sun will soon be shining
You gotta face the clouds
To find the silver lining

I’ve seen dreams that move the mountains
Hope that doesn’t ever end
Even when the sky is falling
I’ve seen miracles just happen
Silent prayers get answered
Broken hearts become brand new
That’s what faith can do

It doesn’t matter what you’ve heard
Impossible is not a word
It’s just a reason
For someone not to try

Everybody’s scared to death
When they decide to take that step
Out on the water
It’ll be alright

Life is so much more
Than what your eyes are seeing
You will find your way
If you keep believing

I’ve seen dreams that move the mountains
Hope that doesn’t ever end
Even when the sky is falling
I’ve seen miracles just happen
Silent prayers get answered
Broken hearts become brand new
That’s what faith can do

Overcome the odds
You don’t have a chance
(That’s what faith can do)
When the world says you can’t
It’ll tell you that you can

I’ve seen dreams that move the mountains
Hope that doesn’t ever end
Even when the sky is falling
And I’ve seen miracles just happen
Silent prayers get answered
Broken hearts become brand new
That’s what faith can do
That’s what faith can do

Even if you fall sometimes
You will have the strength to rise