There Was No Speaker in the House…and We Survived
In those days, there was no speaker in The House. And everyone did what was right in his own eyes.
King…president…speaker…whatever. Israel…the House…a house. The maxim holds true. When there is an absence of leadership, there is an absence of order—an absence of peace, productivity, and purpose. In the absence of leadership, there is the presence of chaos.
McCarthy. Scalise. Jordan. Emmer. Johnson? Maybe. Maybe not. We shall see by the time we go to press.
The House needs a speaker. The nation needs a president. True enough. But these are not the only things lacking. If we are placing our hopes on a man, any man (or woman) to solve the problems we face today, we will be most assuredly disappointed. Our trouble runs deeper than any office, branch, party, or platform. We are more than confused on our college campuses, more than misleading in our media, more than pernicious in our politics.
We are corrupt at our very core.
For those scratching their heads, because this sounds familiar, but you can’t quite place it, the title is referencing a verse (several verses actually) from the Bible. Judges, to be exact.
“In those days, there was no king in Israel and everyone did what was right in their own eyes.”
We can write about or talk about current events and votes till we are blue or red in the face, but neither of those things are evergreen. Erudite today is erroneous or irrelevant tomorrow in the world of 24-hour news and 5-minute attention spans. Forget about the breaking news, the headlines, incidents, and circumstances. Those things change faster than we can spellcheck a chyron or powder a nose.
Until we address the roots of our bad fruit, we are wheel spinning and time wasting.
Say the GOP gets their act together and installs a speaker TODAY. I pray they do. So? Then what? Does that give anyone a true sense of confidence that better days are ahead, and days of utter BS are behind? It shouldn’t.
In ancient days and today, the problem isn’t just the absence of the one man. It is the absence of all that the one man should have been doing.
When there was no king in Israel, that meant that there was no king to govern, no judge to discern, no authority to prevent lawlessness, no defender to discourage attacks from without, no ruler to prevent attacks from within.
And in the absence of ALL OF THOSE THINGS, everyone did what was right in their own eyes. And the people groaned in misery because man was blind—what was right in their own eyes was wrong.
What are the people to do in the absence of a righteous ruler in the nation? Pursue righteousness in the home, in the heart, in the habits all the more. Most of you reading this are not in a position to change things on a global scale. But you are extremely influential on a local scale, on a personal scale.
You are in fact, the king of your castle. Are you ruling with integrity there? Is everyone doing what is right in their own eyes or are you setting an excellent standard for what is good and true, and then inspiring and equipping your “loyal subjects” to meet those high expectations? You should be. You could be.
The absence of a speaker in The House does not prevent YOU from being a leader in YOUR HOUSE.
There is literally nothing and no one that can prevent you from displaying and instilling character and quality in the people around you. There is no law sufficient to force you to be lawless. Not yet. There is no hindrance to your good governance of you and yours…but you. Love justice. Seek mercy. Walk humbly. Speak truth.
Let greater powers worry about greater trouble. Hearts and minds are changed at home. Changed hearts and minds make history, resist tyranny, and change nations.
We have all seen ships sail safe to harbor without a captain, when the crew was well-prepared. And we have seen other valiant vessels disintegrate into mutiny and mayhem, smashed on rock and shore without a captain, when the crew was not.
How’s it looking from your poop deck? You got your ship together?
