Our Crisis Is Spiritual Before Political

A single line from Luke 15 can cut straight through our excuses: “He was lost, but now he is found.” We start there and sit with the Prodigal Son story long enough to feel the sting, not just the comfort. Why does repentance spark joy in heaven, and why do we sometimes respond more like the bitter older brother than the welcoming father? I read the passages and talk through what they reveal about grace, resentment, and what God celebrates.

From there, I pivot into faith and culture with a blunt claim: actions tell the tale. We can argue words all day, but what we do shows what we worship. That applies to marriage and home life through Proverbs 31, and it applies to discipline through Proverbs 13:1. Psalm 81 brings the warning language many of us avoid, choosing our own ideas, refusing correction, then wondering why things unravel.

I also share a Medal of Honor account of John Knight Buckland’s courage at Chancellorsville, then tie the whole conversation back to prayer, civic responsibility, and the National Day of Prayer. The questions at the end are simple and uncomfortable: do we pray for our nation and leaders every day, or do we mainly want the results without the work?

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Transcript

Lost And Found Opening Scripture

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Luke 15, 31. His father said to him, Look, dear son, you have always stayed by me, and everything I have is yours. We had to celebrate this happy day, for your brother was dead and has come back to life. He was lost, but now he is found.

Crime Story And Ideology Claim

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April 12th, 2026. Realize how recent Arlington, Virginia woman was assaulted and the victim of an attempted rape while waiting for a ride share on Wilson Boulevard in Clarendon by Lesman Orvando Garcia Moran, an illegal immigrant from Guatemala. Realize too, folks, it's the illegal immigrant part, just like it's it's the Muslim part, the leftist part, it's not the location, the geography that matters. It's not the ethnicity that matters, it's the ideology. That's what tells the tale. Right.

Welcome And Opening Prayer

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Okay, folks, it's Jesse Cope back with another episode of the American Soul Podcast. Hope y'all are doing well. Appreciate you joining me. For those of y'all who continue to share the podcast and pray for it, and for me, thank you very much. Desperately. Yeah, definitely need your prayers. Very grateful for. Father, thank you for today. Thank you for you, Father, and your son, Jesus Christ, and your Holy Spirit. Thank you for your love and your mercy, your grace and your forgiveness. Please be with those who are listening to the podcast. Be with their families. Bless their marriages. Guide those who have children in raising them. Help us to focus on you, Father. Help us to store up for ourselves treasures in heaven, not here on earth. Help us to turn to you first each day, not as a last resort. And help us to remember that these trials and tribulations are momentary. That because of your Son Jesus Christ, we will get to spend eternity with you and Him in heaven, where there's no more sorrow, no more tears, no more heartache, no more pain, but joy and hope. Happiness, comfort, peace. Help us to be still before you each day, Father. Throughout the day. Be with our military, our law enforcement, our firefighters, our EMS, be with our families, please. Guide them and bless them. Be with our leaders the same. And guide my words here, Father, please. In your son's name we pray. Amen.

Marriage Proverbs And Daily Actions

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Marriage verses for today. Proverbs 31, 10 through 12 and 27 through 30. A competent wife, how does one find her? Her value is far above pearls. Her husband entrusts his heart to her, and with her he will have all he needs. She brings him good and not trouble all the days of her life. She is vigilant over the activities of her household. She doesn't eat the food of laziness. Her children bless her. Her husband praises her. Many women act competently, but you surpass them all. Charm is deceptive, and beauty fleeting. But a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised. Actions, folks, actions always tell the tell. Actions always matter more than words. Infinitely more than words. Your tone or what you say is insignificant. It doesn't even register on the radar relative to what you do. What I do, what we do each day. It's a reminder for us to get our priorities in the right order.

Luke 15 And The Prodigal Son

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Luke 15, 1 through 32. Tax collectors and other notorious sinners often came to listen to Jesus teach. This made the Pharisees and teachers of religious law complain that he was associating with such sinful people, even eating with them. So Jesus told them this story. When he arrives, he will call together his friends and neighbors, saying, Rejoice with me, because I have found my lost sheep. In the same way, there is more joy in heaven over one lost sinner who repents and returns to God than ninety-nine others who are righteous and haven't strayed away. Or suppose a woman has ten silver coins and loses one. Won't she light a lamp and sweep the entire house and search carefully until she finds it? And when she finds it, she will call in her friends and neighbors and say, Rejoice with me, because I have found my lost coin. In the same way, there is joy in the presence of God's angels when even one sinner repents. To illustrate the point further, Jesus told them this story. A man had two sons. The younger son told his father, I want my share of your estate now before you die. So his father agreed to divide his wealth between his sons. A few days later, the younger son packed all his belongings and moved to a distant land. And there he wasted all his money in wild living. About the time his money ran out, a great famine swept over the land and he began to starve. He persuaded a local farmer to hire him, and the man sent him into his fields to feed the pigs. The young man became so hungry that even the pods he was feeding the pigs looked good to him, but no one gave him anything. When he finally came to his senses, he said to himself, At home even the hired servants have food enough to spare. And here I am dying of hunger. I will go home to my father and say, Father, I have sinned against both heaven and you, and I am no longer worthy of being called your son. Please take me on as a hired servant. So he returned home to his father, and while he was still a long way off, his father saw him coming. Filled with love and compassion, he ran to his son, embraced him, and kissed him. His son said to him, Father, I have sinned against both heaven and you, and I am no longer worthy of being called your son. But his father said to his servants, Quick, bring the finest robe in the house and put it on him. Get a ring for his finger and sandals for his feet, and kill the calf we have been fattening. We must celebrate with a feast, for this son of mine was dead and has now returned to life. He was lost, but now he's found. So the party began. Meanwhile, the older son was in the fields working. When he returned home, he heard music and dancing in the house, and he asked one of the servants what was going on. Your brother is back, he was told. And your father has killed the fattened calf. We are celebrating because of his safe return. The older brother was angry and wouldn't go in. His father came out and begged him, but he replied, All these years I've slayed for you, and I've never once refused to do a single thing you told me to. And in all that time you never gave me even one young goat for a feast with my friends. Yet when this son of yours comes back after squandering your money on prostitutes, you celebrate by killing the fattened calf. His father said to him, Look, dear son, you have always stayed by me, and everything I have is yours. We had to celebrate this happy day, for your brother was dead and has come back to life. He was lost, but now he is found. What a rough parable that one always is, huh? A lot of ways to take it. Psalm 81, 1 through 16.

Psalm 81 Warning To Listen

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Sing praises to God our strength. Sing to the God of Jacob. Sing, beat the tambourine, play the sweet lyre and the harp, blow the ram's horn at new moon, and again at full moon to call a festival. For this is required by the decrees of Israel. It is a regulation of the God of Jacob. He made it a law for Israel when he attacked Egypt to set us free. I heard an unknown voice say, Now I will take the load from your shoulders. I will free your hands from their heavy tasks. You cried to me in trouble and I saved you. I answered out of the thundercloud and tested your faith when there was no water at Meribah. Listen to me, O my people, while I give you stern warnings. O Israel, if you would only listen to me. You must never have a foreign God. You must not bow down before a false God. For it was I, the Lord your God, who rescued you from the land of Egypt. Open your mouth wide and I will fill it with good things. But no, my people wouldn't listen. Israel did not want me around. So I let them follow their own stubborn desires, living according to their own ideas. Oh, that my people would listen to me. Oh, that Israel would follow me, walking in my paths. How quickly I would then subdue their enemies, how soon my hands would be upon their foes. Those who hate the Lord would cringe before him. They would be doomed forever. But I would feed you with the finest wheat. I would satisfy you with wild honey from the rock.

Proverbs 13 And Discipline

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Proverbs 13:1. A wise child accepts a parent's discipline. A mocker refused to listen to correction. Refuses to listen to correction.

Book Recommendation And Support Request

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Countryside. If you're looking for a middle-grade fantasy series, kind of like uh Narnia, Harry Potter, Percy Jackson, The Hobbit, stuff like that, uh, if you would check out the Countryside series, I would appreciate it. And same with the podcast if you have time, I would appreciate that too.

Medal Of Honor John Buckland

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Medal of Honor for today, John Knight Buckland. First lieutenant, highest rank, Revit Captain, U.S. Civil War Echo Battery, 1st Rhode Island Light Artillery, U.S. Army, May 3, 1863, Chancellorsville, Virginia. Though himself wounded, Buckland gallantly fought his section of the battery under a fierce fire from the enemy until his ammunition was all expended. Many of the cannoneers and most of the horses killed or wounded, and the enemy within 25 yards of the gun when disabling one piece, he brought off the other in safety. Credited to Providence, Providence County, Rhode Island, not awarded posthumously. Presented July 13, 1899. Born March 15, 1834, Foster Creek, Providence County, Rhode Island. Died May 15, 1906, Mystic, Connecticut. Buried Lower Mystic Cemetery, Mystic, Connecticut. John Knight Buckland. Go back just real quick. This is the second book. I don't show it often in the Countryside series, and you can see some of the reviews there on the back. If you get a chance, check it out. Leave a review if you can. And if you have five or ten dollars you can spare for the podcast, also I would be very grateful for that. See if I can find our next little tidbit. I think we have read this particular incident before, but this is kind of from a different angle, so I wanted to read it

Another Assault Story And Hard Truths

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again. This is out of New Eaton, Warwickshire, UK. 12-year-old girl was abducted from a park near the town center, rape, sexually assaulted twice, and filmed by Ahmed Mokahil, a 23-year-old Afghan asylum seeker. If you're paying attention to what's going on across the United States, Ireland, France, Spain, Belgium, the UK, the problem is leftism and Islam enabled by Christless Conservatives, folks. In all the cases, the problem is that we want a solution, right? Which is so true of us all. All of us today, we want these easy solutions. Like you get overweight and you want this pill that makes you skinny. You you're an alcoholic and you want this magic bullet to not be. Your marriage is all messed up and you suddenly want it to just magically be okay without dealing with any of the problems that are there. And we want our countries to magically be normal, quote unquote, again, or okay, but we don't want to deal with the really hard problems. We don't want to deal with the fact that the only way we get stability and liberty throughout all of history is following the principles of Christ. Even if it was in places where they didn't have Christianity, or places before Christ, or places that rejected Christ, any liberty that was brought to those places, anywhere on the planet, at any time, they were following those principles of Christ, whether they knew it or not. In that moment, when that liberty was there, they were following the principles of Christ. Right.

National Day Of Prayer And Closing

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January 25th, 1988, United States Congress by joint resolution, the 100th Congress, declared the first Thursday of each May to be recognized as a National Day of Prayer. Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, that the joint resolution entitled, Joint Resolution to Provide for Setting Aside an Appropriate Day as a National Day of Prayer, approved April 17, 1952, Public Law 82 TAC-324-6664 is amended by striking a suitable day each year, other than a Sunday, and inserting in lieu thereof the first Thursday in May in each year. Do we pray for our nation, folks, on a regular basis every day? Do we pray for our leaders and our churches and in our states? Do we pray that we'll turn back to God and Jesus Christ as a people, or do we really merely want the results without the work? Do we want the uh body and the physique without actually working out? Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us, and lead us not to temptation, but deliver us from evil, for thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever and ever. Amen. God bless y'all. God bless your families, your marriages if you're married. God bless your nation, wherever you are around the world listening. God bless America. We'll talk to y'all again real soon, folks. Looking forward to it.