The Rise & Fall of William Wallace
Or Hillbilly Elegy
A few generations ago, my great grandmother came to America on a boat from Scotland as an eleven-year-old girl.
My grandfather was as proud a son of Scotland as an American boy from Detroit could be.
His copy of “How the Scots Invented the Free World” sits on the shelf in my office to this day.
I’m Scots Irish if you tested me, and Braveheart still gets my blood pumpin, but I’m not sure that’s got anything to do with my heritage.
In Braveheart, the famed freedom fighter, William Wallace, challenges the oppressive Brits like none before.
Ultimately, Wallace is betrayed and murdered… but not defeated!
He cries out “FREEDOM!” with his last breath. Reminding the British that they may take his life, but they will never take the Scots heart of freedom.
The tragedy of so many Scots Irish immigrants is that a heart that cries “freedom” found slavery in America under a mountain of self-inflicted debt.
William Wallace was replaced by William Wallet as the silent killer of indulgence, pleasure, and ease became the story of many American families.
7 The rich rule over the poor,
and the borrower is slave to the lender.
Proverbs 22:7
It was tragic that companies threatened to fire workers over various COVID health choices.
Wasn’t it also tragic that most of us are two generations away from someone who sailed here with empty pockets and a dream, yet here we are panicked that our second car or third meal out to eat might be threatened.
The power wasn’t the government that truly scared many, but the debt-shackles we’d embraced of our own choice.
Believers with a resurrection hope need to leave behind the dead-life of the American [Debt Laden] Dream.
6 But the widow who lives for pleasure is dead even while she lives.
1 Timothy 5:6