Over a period of time, bad habits will always catch up with you. Two very bad habits in our culture today have caught up with us in a rather dramatic and serious way. They are lack of responsibility and entitlement.

The habit of not taking responsibility for one's actions is at an all time high. "It's not my fault," is uttered almost everywhere these days. The belief that it is always someone else's fault for one's problems has become common thinking.

And then there's entitlement, from the womb to the tomb. More and more people are buying into the philosophy that everyone deserves to have anything and everything that they want. And, if they can't afford to have everything that they want, then someone, like the government, should give it to them, one way or another.

It is very apparent that these two bad habits seem to have caught up with us. Today, many people are looking to the government for help, for a bail out, for special assistance, etc. The fact that they are in that frame of mind is evidence enough that those two bad habits are at an epidemic proportion!

When the United States became an independent nation, one of the key principles was that all men are created equal and endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, among which were life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. It was never the intention of the founding fathers for the guarantee of happiness. The intent was rather to allow each individual's pursuit of happiness.

This is not a political article. I do not want to discuss all the corruption on Wall Street, nor the housing loan fiasco, or even which political party is to blame. I'll leave that for others to argue about.

I choose to address a much deeper issue. It is both sad and alarming to me that so many Christians are looking to and expecting help from their government and not from their God.

How about you? Who are you looking to for help? Who are you expecting to supply all that you need? Who are you listening to for sound advice, solid direction, new ideas, great deals, simple solutions, etc?

I am not asking these questions to be critical. But, the current mind set of so many begs these questions! Has the Creator of the heavens and the earth lost any of His power? Has He lost any of His willingness or ability? Does He love you any less today than He did yesterday?

I remember years ago hearing that old saying, "If you give a man a fish, you feed him for a day. If you teach him how to fish, you feed him for a lifetime." I'd like to add, that God is big enough to show you where to fish and when to fish!

There are many people who are afraid and worrying about how bad things are. And, it is true; we are living in some very challenging times. But it is also an excellent time to regroup and ask yourself a very honest question: Who do you trust?

If you allow the news of the day make you afraid, and then look to the government to take care of you, then it will be very difficult for you at the same time to trust and have confidence that God will take care of you.

Yes, I am into helping people out; I have helped people my whole life, when I could, with what I had to give. That's not the point of this article. Rather, it is up to each one of us to continue to build into our minds and hearts a trust and confidence in God to supply all that we need, and even beyond that, the desires of our hearts!

It is your choice whom you trust.

In 1861, Secretary Chase, in a letter, instructed James Pollock, Director of the Mint at Philadelphia, to prepare a motto. He said, "No nation can be strong except in the strength of God, or safe except in His defense. The trust of our people in God should be declared on our national coins."

The saying on all the coins became, "In God We Trust." In the next century, President Eisenhower approved a Joint Resolution of the 84th Congress, declaring, as the national motto of the United States "In God We Trust."