{"id":5399,"date":"2026-04-29T08:22:00","date_gmt":"2026-04-29T12:22:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/?p=5399"},"modified":"2026-04-29T08:22:00","modified_gmt":"2026-04-29T12:22:00","slug":"knocking-off-the-rust","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/2026\/04\/29\/knocking-off-the-rust\/","title":{"rendered":"Knocking Off the Rust"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast<\/em>,\u00a0click here<\/a>
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As the Cold War began to heat up in the 1950’s, America’s leaders felt led to make a public statement that\u00a0their chief adversary, the Soviet Union, would have to notice.
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If the Soviets believed in state-sponsored atheism, the United States would counter with government-endorsed theism.
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The 84th<\/sup> Congress passed a joint resolution that declared “In God We Trust” to be our official national motto.\u00a0The resolution passed both the House and the Senate unanimously, without a single word of debate.\u00a0
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It’s hard to imagine our present Congress agreeing\u00a0on what to have for lunch without vigorous debate.
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On July 30, 1956, President Dwight Eisenhower signed the resolution into law.\u00a0On the same day, he authorized\u00a0a mandate that “In God We Trust” appear on all U.S. coins and currency.\u00a0
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It’s not surprising that a number of Americans are uncomfortable carrying around coins and cash bearing\u00a0a motto they personally reject.\u00a0They would gladly\u00a0see it banished.\u00a0But in\u00a0a 2003 poll jointly administered by USA Today<\/em>, CNN, and Gallup, a remarkable\u00a090% of Americans (that’s more people than say they\u00a0believe in God) gave it their\u00a0thumbs up.
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Every now and then, the motto gets a little garbled.
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Consider the first run of the “Kansas” quarters\u00a0in 2005, back when the U.S. mint was creating unique coins for each of the 50 states. A small glob of lubricant escaped from the stamping machine onto the surface of the coin die, plugging up the first letter T in “Trust.”
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What do we get as a result?\u00a0In God We Rust.\u00a0<\/em>
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If you happen to have a 2005 Kansas quarter, by the way, that looks like the one above, collectors say it’s worth about $10.\u00a0Which is not a bad exchange for 25 cents.
\u00a0\u00a0
“In God We Rust” seems to have been the official motto of Jesus’ disciples in the Garden of Gethsemane.\u00a0
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Jesus had retreated to this olive grove with his friends immediately after they shared the Last Supper.\u00a0He pleaded\u00a0for their support.\u00a0Would they be willing to pray for him while he wrestled alone with the task of embracing\u00a0the monumental burden of pain and humiliation that lay just ahead?
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What jumps out in the four historical accounts that we have of this moment \u2013 the narratives in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John \u2013 is the utter spiritual ineptitude of Jesus’ apprentices.\u00a0They all fail him personally.\u00a0
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Jesus returned to his disciples, only to find them sound asleep.\u00a0“Couldn’t you stick it out with me for a single hour?” he asked.\u00a0He then added, “Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation.\u00a0The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak” (Matthew 26:41).
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The disciples had essentially stepped into the batter’s box against a major league pitcher, hoping they might be able to swing wildly at a 95-mph fastball and somehow get a hit.\u00a0
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But they hadn’t practiced prayer.\u00a0They hadn’t practiced waiting.\u00a0They hadn’t practiced wrestling with God.\u00a0
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They weren’t ready, in other words, for the spiritual big leagues.\u00a0\u00a0
\u00a0
Eugene Peterson, in his Bible paraphrase called The Message<\/em>, offers this memorable rendering of the same verse: “Stay alert; be in prayer so you don’t wander into temptation without even knowing you’re in danger.\u00a0There is a part of you that is eager, ready for anything in God. But there\u2019s another part that\u2019s as lazy as an old dog sleeping by the fire.\u201d
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In God We Rust.\u00a0<\/em>
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What can we do?\u00a0\u00a0
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Practice, practice, practice.\u00a0Knock off the rust.\u00a0We don’t have to “get anywhere” with God when we pray, because we already are right where we should be.
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The best part is that we can practice our practicing any time we want.
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Right now, for instance<\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast,\u00a0click here\u00a0As the Cold War began to heat up in the 1950’s, America’s leaders felt led to make a public statement that\u00a0their chief adversary, the Soviet Union, would have to notice.\u00a0If the Soviets believed in state-sponsored atheism, the United States would counter with government-endorsed theism.\u00a0The 84th Congress passed a joint resolution that declared… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5400,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1105,105],"class_list":["post-5399","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-practice","tag-spiritual-disciplines"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5399","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5399"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5399\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5401,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5399\/revisions\/5401"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5400"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5399"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5399"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5399"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}