The American flag should not overshadow the cross.

Two years ago, my younger son was having regular conversations with God. He was visiting with God in a way in which he could literally see and hear him. One day, he and God were talking about holidays. He shared the conversation with me.

It turns out that God isn’t at all pleased with our holidays. My son told me how God finds Halloween to be an incredible abomination and Christmas to be the worship of things, not his son.

At this point, I considered the fact that my kiddo could have gotten these ideas from me. I am not a fan of Halloween, and I definitely complain about the commercialization of Christmas. My 12-year-old certainly could have adopted my ideas and projected them onto “God.”

Things got weird, though, when he started talking about God’s opinion on Valentine’s Day, a day during which much sexual sin is committed.(!) Then he talked about the 4th of July. He told me that God said that the 4th of July was idol worship. I asked him why. He said it was because people were honoring the country over God.

Note that all holidays are not awful. God likes Thanksgiving, according to my son.

At any rate, prior to that time, I had not given any thought to the 4th of July and any underlying meaning it might have. I was frankly stunned to hear those words coming out of my child’s mouth. Since that day, though, I have become more and more convinced that my kid did indeed hear God’s voice that day. That American Christians don’t question what they value. That we follow culture before Jesus. Stuff like that.

I’ll leave it up to you to decide if he really heard the voice of God. I’m pretty wary of saying things like, “Thus sayeth the Lord.” Nevertheless, it’s food for thought, right?

As a Jesus-follower, I consider myself a citizen of God’s Kingdom. The rest is small change.