pillar to a butterfly. You see, it had to fight and struggle to finally develop. And when we cut open that cocoon, thinking we were helping that beautiful butterfly, we were really killing it.

And today, we are killing America with our easy ways, our easy life.

In the late 1700s, when our colonies were still a part of England, a professor Alexander Tyson wrote about the fall of the world's greatest nations, and here's what he had to say, "The average age of the world's greatest civilizations has been about 200 years. These nations have progressed through the following sequence:

from bondage to spiritual faith;

From spiritual faith to great courage;

From great courage to liberty;

From liberty to abundance; from abundance to selfishness

Today in America it surely appears that our main objective is to find easier ways to do things. There's a remote control for most every gadget; just about any meal can be prepared for us in inside six minutes; we don't even have to lick our own stamps or envelopes anymore -- they're already sticky when we buy them.

Yes, life is easy here in America. But is "easy" really good for America? Not according to syndicated radio producer Jerry Stewart. In fact, he says that the easy life is one big problem with America today -- it's bringing us down as a nation.

But why is easy bad for America? Follow Jerry's explanation and draw your own conclusion.

"The explanation is actually quite simple if you think about it. What happens to most anything that's not worked? It dries up, cracks up, breaks up, and eventually quits working. And what about our own bodies? Ever notice what they have to do for a person who is paralyzed or in a coma? A physical therapist actually exercises that person's body for them, because what is not worked in our bodies will waste away to nothing.

And that's what's happening to America. Those Americans who went before us fought hard and sacrificed, finally scraping their way to the top of the hill. Then they stood at the top, proud of their diligence and determination, not knowing that only a few generations later their children and grandchildren would sit like "fatcats" at the top of that hill, not willing to continue that same diligence and determination.

Want a few examples? Here's one. Why can't we get the illegal aliens out of our country? Because they are willing to do the work we are too lazy to do ourselves. So, if we send all illegal aliens back where they came from, what will happen? Our crops will rot, our ditches won't be dug, many areas of life as we know it will stop because we Americans refuse to do the hard, dirty work. So, the illegal aliens continue to stay -- and they probably will stay.

Did you know that doctors are predicting that in less than 10 years the single largest health problem we will have in our United States is obesity? Oh yeah, we're not always eating right. But, it's not the greasy food that makes our kids fat - it's the laziness - too many video games, too much TV, and not enough sweat and hard work.

When I was a boy, a group of us kids found a beautiful monarch butterfly just coming out of its cocoon. As we watched, it fought and struggled to get out. It would become completely exhausted and stop struggling for long periods of time. Then it would begin to fight again to get out of the cocoon.

Finally, we kids were convinced the butterfly would never make it out, so we oh so carefully cut the cocoon open and the butterfly was free. And when it got out it was beautiful, but the beautiful butterfly never flew away and, finally, it just died.

What was wrong with it? Was it sickly? The next day at school in our science class we found out why that butterfly died - the desperate struggle to get out of that cocoon was part of its final metamorphosis from a caterpillar to a butterfly. You see, it had to fight and struggle to finally develop. And when we cut open that cocoon, thinking we were helping that beautiful butterfly, we were really killing it.

And today, we are killing America with our easy ways, our easy life.

In the late 1700s, when our colonies were still a part of England, a professor Alexander Tyson wrote about the fall of the world's greatest nations, and here's what he had to say, "The average age of the world's greatest civilizations has been about 200 years. These nations have progressed through the following sequence:

from bondage to spiritual faith;

From spiritual faith to great courage;

From great courage to liberty;

From liberty to abundance; from abundance to selfishness;

rked? It dries up, cracks up, breaks up, and eventually quits working. And what about our own bodies? Ever notice what they have to do for a person who is paralyzed or in a coma? A physical therapist actually exercises that person's body for them, because what is not worked in our bodies will waste away to nothing.

And that's what's happening to America. Those Americans who went before us fought hard and sacrificed, finally scraping their way to the top of the hill. Then they stood at the top, proud of their diligence and determination, not knowing that only a few generations later their children and grandchildren would sit like "fatcats" at the top of that hill, not willing to continue that same diligence and determination.

Want a few examples? Here's one. Why can't we get the illegal aliens out of our country? Because they are willing to do the work we are too lazy to do ourselves. So, if we send all illegal aliens back where they came from, what will happen? Our crops will rot, our ditches won't be dug, many areas of life as we know it will stop because we Americans refuse to do the hard, dirty work. So, the illegal aliens continue to stay -- and they probably will stay.

Did you know that doctors are predicting that in less than 10 years the single largest health problem we will have in our United States is obesity? Oh yeah, we're not always eating right. But, it's not the greasy food that makes our kids fat - it's the laziness - too many video games, too much TV, and not enough sweat and hard work.

When I was a boy, a group of us kids found a beautiful monarch butterfly just coming out of its cocoon. As we watched, it fought and struggled to get out. It would become completely exhausted and stop struggling for long periods of time. Then it would begin to fight again to get out of the cocoon.

Finally, we kids were convinced the butterfly would never make it out, so we oh so carefully cut the cocoon open and the butterfly was free. And when it got out it was beautiful, but the beautiful butterfly never flew away and, finally, it just died.

What was wrong with it? Was it sickly? The next day at school in our science class we found out why that butterfly died - the desperate struggle to get out of that cocoon was part of its final metamorphosis from a caterpillar to a butterfly. You see, it had to fight and struggle to finally develop. And when we cut open that cocoon, thinking we were helping that beautiful butterfly, we were really killing it.

And today, we are killing America with our easy ways, our easy life.

In the late 1700s, when our colonies were still a part of England, a professor Alexander Tyson wrote about the fall of the world's greatest nations, and here's what he had to say, "The average age of the world's greatest civilizations has been about 200 years. These nations have progressed through the following sequence:

from bondage to spiritual faith;

From spiritual faith to great courage;

From great courage to liberty;

From liberty to abundance; from abundance to selfishness

ne. Why can't we get the illegal aliens out of our country? Because they are willing to do the work we are too lazy to do ourselves. So, if we send all illegal aliens back where they came from, what will happen? Our crops will rot, our ditches won't be dug, many areas of life as we know it will stop because we Americans refuse to do the hard, dirty work. So, the illegal aliens continue to stay -- and they probably will stay.

Did you know that doctors are predicting that in less than 10 years the single largest health problem we will have in our United States is obesity? Oh yeah, we're not always eating right. But, it's not the greasy food that makes our kids fat - it's the laziness - too many video games, too much TV, and not enough sweat and hard work.

When I was a boy, a group of us kids found a beautiful monarch butterfly just coming out of its cocoon. As we watched, it fought and struggled to get out. It would become completely exhausted and stop struggling for long periods of time. Then it would begin to fight again to get out of the cocoon.

Finally, we kids were convinced the butterfly would never make it out, so we oh so carefully cut the cocoon open and the butterfly was free. And when it got out it was beautiful, but the beautiful butterfly never flew away and, finally, it just died.

What was wrong with it? Was it sickly? The next day at school in our science class we found out why that butterfly died - the desperate struggle to get out of that cocoon was part of its final metamorphosis from a caterpillar to a butterfly. You see, it had to fight and struggle to finally develop. And when we cut open that cocoon, thinking we were helping that beautiful butterfly, we were really killing it.

And today, we are killing America with our easy ways, our easy life.

In the late 1700s, when our colonies were still a part of England, a professor Alexander Tyson wrote about the fall of the world's greatest nations, and here's what he had to say, "The average age of the world's greatest civilizations has been about 200 years. These nations have progressed through the following sequence:

from bondage to spiritual faith;

From spiritual faith to great courage;

From great courage to liberty;

From liberty to abundance; from abundance to selfishness

en I was a boy, a group of us kids found a beautiful monarch butterfly just coming out of its cocoon. As we watched, it fought and struggled to get out. It would become completely exhausted and stop struggling for long periods of time. Then it would begin to fight again to get out of the cocoon.

Finally, we kids were convinced the butterfly would never make it out, so we oh so carefully cut the cocoon open and the butterfly was free. And when it got out it was beautiful, but the beautiful butterfly never flew away and, finally, it just died.

What was wrong with it? Was it sickly? The next day at school in our science class we found out why that butterfly died - the desperate struggle to get out of that cocoon was part of its final metamorphosis from a caterpillar to a butterfly. You see, it had to fight and struggle to finally develop. And when we cut open that cocoon, thinking we were helping that beautiful butterfly, we were really killing it.

And today, we are killing America with our easy ways, our easy life.

In the late 1700s, when our colonies were still a part of England, a professor Alexander Tyson wrote about the fall of the world's greatest nations, and here's what he had to say, "The average age of the world's greatest civilizations has been about 200 years. These nations have progressed through the following sequence:

from bondage to spiritual faith;

From spiritual faith to great courage;

From great courage to liberty;

From liberty to abundance; from abundance to selfishness

pillar to a butterfly. You see, it had to fight and struggle to finally develop. And when we cut open that cocoon, thinking we were helping that beautiful butterfly, we were really killing it.

And today, we are killing America with our easy ways, our easy life.

In the late 1700s, when our colonies were still a part of England, a professor Alexander Tyson wrote about the fall of the world's greatest nations, and here's what he had to say, "The average age of the world's greatest civilizations has been about 200 years. These nations have progressed through the following sequence:

from bondage to spiritual faith;

From spiritual faith to great courage;

From great courage to liberty;

From liberty to abundance; from abundance to selfishness;

From selfishness to complacency;

From complacency to apathy;

From apathy to dependency;

And from dependency back to bondage.

And where are we in America today? Slightly past complacency, in the early stages of apathy, approaching a full fledged dependency, with bondage right around the corner."

So what should we be praying for? What is Jerry praying for? Hardship, real honest to goodness hardship for our nation.

"Oh, I don’t want to see a terrible plague or a nuclear war take us out, or great harm come to our children and grandchildren. But if we don’t have something arise in our nation soon to get us back to the hardship our parents and grandparents faced, soon we will find ourselves back in bondage.

So what should be our prayer? Pray not that things will be easy, but that we will have the strength, with God's help, to overcome any hardship and obstacles placed in our way. And our hardships will give us the strength we need to carry on in life."

To read more of Jerry Stewart’s opinions on life and America, and to read some powerful stories in our history, go to his web site http://www.visionradioproductions.com. You'll also see a list of radio stations he broadcasts on to find the station nearest you.