Get Out and Vote!

The national election is just days away.Where will you be on November 2 when our country elects a President and states decide who will represent them in the U.S. House and Senate? I hope you plan to spend a few minutes of that day in a voting booth.

God has richly blessed America with abundance and freedom. If we're thankful for these blessings and our fellow citizens who sacrificed and continue to sacrifice to preserve them, we owe it to them to get out and vote as our duty to our country. How can anyone in good conscience say they have more important things to do than exercise their privilege to vote in a free country?

Recent events have reminded us that we can never take our freedoms for granted. Preserving freedom has always demanded diligence and sacrifice. After taking our freedoms for granted for too many years, patriotism is back - and it's a great thing to see.

The two great sources of America's greatness are faith and freedom. America was founded on the belief that we all are created by God to have equal opportunities to become all He wants us to be. We're all created in God's image and should be free to pursue our dreams.

Forty years ago, during the fears of the Cold War, those principles were in doubt in America. Many were saying that our American freedoms would be buried under communism and that perhaps socialism was a more effective system than free enterprise and the wave of the future. I started giving a speech called "Selling America" to argue my conviction that our nation was the greatest the world had ever seen and that freedom and free enterprise gave us a standard of living beyond the dreams of most Soviets. Today, communism is all but dead. Amway, the company I co-founded on the American way of doing business at the height of the Cold War, today is prospering in China and former Soviet Bloc countries.

God wants us to be free. In gratitude for that incredible gift, we have a duty to never take our freedoms for granted and to do our part in protecting our freedoms. So many of our fellow Americans from our brave history and right up to this day have made the supreme sacrifice to protect our freedoms. We have leaders serving to help ensure our American way of life.

All Americans do not have the opportunity to serve our country as protectors of freedom or as national leaders. But in gratitude to those who serve and in appreciation to God for His abundant blessings on America, we all can exercise our patriotic duty to vote. Voting is essential to our democracy, and each vote counts. On November 2, thank God to be an American and be counted as a patriotic, contributing citizen - get out and vote!

If you're interested, there is more information about:
The most important event of all time and
The most important Book of all time.

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Rich DeVos is vice-chairman of Gospel Communications. He is also the author of "Hope From My Heart: Ten Lessons for Life," co-founder of Amway Corp., and owner and chairman of the NBA's Orlando Magic.