Marching forth with facts about March 4

I didn’t have a good story to tell on someone, including myself, I could use as the basis for this Quay County Sun article. So I resorted to checking the internet for interesting facts about March 4 because there’s a maximum of 366 days each year and something of interest has happened on each date at sometime within the 5,000 years or so of recorded history.

Believe it or not, one website states March 4 is Grammar Day (https://nationaldaycalendar.com/national-grammar-day-march-4/) — Ewwwww! I’ll not say much more about that for fear of adding to my grammatical errors in this article except that, if you always use Bible words to describe Bible things and do Bible things the Bible way for Bible reasons, you cannot go wrong.

On March 4, 1789, the full U.S. House of Representatives met for the first time and declared the Constitution in effect (https://onthisday.com/events/march/4). It would be good if every citizen, including our state and national leaders, would read that document regularly. Perhaps writing out our own copy by hand would help us remember, understand and protect our nation and our rights and keep us on the right track (Deuteronomy 17:14-20). Personal, daily Bible study would do more for each person (2 Timothy 3:16-17; 2:15: Philippians 2:12-16; 3:7-16).

March 4 is also National Safety Day in India (https://targetstudy.com/knowledge/day/14/national-safety-week.html). That became a weeklong celebration to “educate society to adopt appropriate policies, practices and procedures for preventing and reducing human suffering and economic loss arising from all types of accidents.” In the USA, we commemorate safety awareness about something just about all the time from home radon detection (among other things) in January to impaired driving prevention in December (https://www.jjkellerlibrary.com/2020-safety-events-calendar). Every day should be considered a personal safety day because every day is the day of salvation, no matter where in the world a person lives (2 Corinthians 6:1-2).

Finally, March 4 is “March forth and do something day” to encourage people to do something positive for themselves or others in their community.” The website calls the word “march” a capitonym (I don’t remember that from grammar school) because, when capitalized, March stands for the month, but when not capitalized, march means to walk in a measured way. Being “measured” indicates a purpose, as in the song, “Onward Christian soldiers, marching as to war.”

The Christian life is a war on multiple fronts — one is against an internal foe and at least one is against external foes (1 Peter 2:11; Romans 7:14-25; Ephesians 6:10-18). The external war includes rescuing others from Satan’s grasp. Therefore, Christians have been given marching orders to go into all the world and teach others about Jesus in hopes that some will make that day the day of their salvation by placing themselves in God’s open but protective hands (Matthew 16:15-19; 28:18-20; Acts 2:1-47; 8:1-4; John 10:27-30).

As in March forth and do something day, “all the world” includes our community. What are you doing to enrich lives in Quay County (Matthew 5:14-16; 7:12; Galatians 6:7-10; James 4:17)?

Leonard Lauriault is a member of the Church of Christ in Logan who writes about faith for the Quay County Sun. Contact him at [email protected]