At this juncture in my 67-year-old life, rights are important. One I highly treasure is LIFE. Beyond that, many of the rights I see extolled today may be best defined as social demands.

I watched a video today of homeless college students in California, actually living in their vehicles. I admire them so much! I saw them as intelligent, capable, determined, well-groomed, articulate, courteous, etc. Amazing young souls who in days or perhaps years to come will wow their worlds with their contributions!

A commentator asked if college housing should be made a right. What a tragedy that would be! Albeit, this is a phenomenal ministry opportunity for God’s people to come alongside with appropriate helps and comforts. I am convinced making it a right implemented and administered by our political system would hinder the building of grit, confidence, ingenuity, accomplishment, and more for many. Am I romanticizing what these particular young people are doing? Perhaps a tad, but would not it be grand if all our lives were lived as an earthly romance with a heavenly quest?

Can you imagine these young people when they finish this college adventure with little to no debt because of their own choices and sacrifices, how confident and strong they will be? A Psychologist told me he and his colleagues had discovered we only value those things into which we have invested ourselves (including our money) – what costs us little or nothing we deem of little or no value.

2 Samuel 24:24 New Living Translation (NLT)
24 But the king replied to Araunah, “No, I insist on buying it, for I will not present burnt offerings to the LORD my God that have cost me nothing.” So David paid him fifty pieces of silver for the threshing floor and the oxen.

Each of us has the God-given right to life. Beyond that we are owed what we earn.

Romans 13:8 New Living Translation (NLT)
8 Owe nothing to anyone—except for your obligation to love one another. If you love your neighbor, you will fulfill the requirements of God’s law.

2 Thessalonians 3:10 New Living Translation (NLT)
10 Even while we were with you, we gave you this command: “Those unwilling to work will not get to eat.” 

Genesis 3:17-19 New Living Translation (NLT)
17 And to the man he said,
“Since you listened to your wife and ate from the tree
whose fruit I commanded you not to eat,
the ground is cursed because of you.
All your life you will struggle to scratch a living from it.
18 It will grow thorns and thistles for you,
though you will eat of its grains.
19 By the sweat of your brow
will you have food to eat
until you return to the ground
from which you were made.
For you were made from dust,
and to dust you will return.”

It’s not love that motivates us (or Systems) to negate The Scratch!

Wait! A thousand times NO! This is NOT a license to neglect, abandon, abuse or in any wise cause harm to one another. GOD also tells us in

1 Timothy 5:8 King James Version (KJV)
8 But if any provide not for his own, and specially for those of his own house, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel. 

It is not Political Systems that should feed, clothe, shelter, provide medical coverage, or educate any of us.
Political Systems enslave the ones they ‘help’.
BUT GOD! Well, The Scratch is a holy gift to each of us – young and old.
What shall we do with it?!