This is Still True.
I’m feeling particularly perky this morning, so I’m just gonna give this to you for free. I wrote this 7 years ago when Trump, Hillary, and Bernie were the faces of polity and thought. It is still true. The sifting is coming.
Friends, fellow political junkies and those shaking their head in disbelief at our current political landscape, I offer this for your comfort:
It had to be this way. It will get worse. It is for our good.
See, there? Now don’t you feel better? You should.
And, here is why: The Creator of the Universe, God Almighty- is not personified in power alone, but in love. He is Abba Father who loves us, lost and saved….”the World”…as His own children.
And, that is why there is no doubt in my mind that tomorrow’s forecast has a 100% chance of sifting and shaking.
This whole election process, if you can call it that when it’s more like a season of the Batchelor…. Where a normal process has been corrupted and degraded, people behave badly, the one most willing to get attention wins and it ends in disaster……every time……. This whole election process has been so bizarre. After the last 8 years, it should have been a cake-walk for anyone with a nice name, the ability to speak…at all, not even well…..and an (R) behind their name to sail into the Whitehouse.
In this arena, the Sunday School answer is “Reagan” and all you have to do is say it when you’re unsure or flustered and presto change-o! You’re the next President.
And, we hit the jackpot with not some vanilla puppet, but a whole bevy of qualified, great candidates…..we have never had a bench so deep. Yet, as we went through the three ring circus of mayhem, one by one they fell.
Y’all. What in the world?!?! We have a Socialist who has been barely employable and in debt most of his life, a woman who should be indicted for MANY things and has more scandals, bodies and bad decisions in her closet than shoes……and Donald Trump, who…..rally around him, respect his business acumen, admire his honesty (total lack of self-control)…. Is about to have every crass interview, every shady deal, adulterous, bullying, lying, manipulating, rapist defending, legal maneuvering and land-grabbing second of his life trotted out before the world.
It defies logic, if that’s the only section of the paper you’re reading. But, if you step back and look at every level, comb through every page to see the big picture, this makes total sense.
It’s not normal. It’s not natural. It IS supernatural.
It’s understandable that politicians think the entire universe spins around Washington DC, but we have to be wise enough to know it doesn’t. It’s a piece, just one piece.
You have to look at the other pieces, like: our culture, habits, hearts, morality, spirituality, ability to care for others, ability to be sacrificial, restraint, self-control, patience, conduct, appetites, relationships, communication, priorities, principles, loyalty, devotion to family, commitment to marriage, protection of children, ability to identify right and wrong and willingness to say it, caring for your physical body rather than indulging it, understanding of truth……
Now, look at that list and tell me the one area where corporately, as a species- not religious or secular- but as mankind, we are improving and growing.
Why am I so confident that we are going to face greater trials, pressure and pain? Because God wants what’s best for His children.
And, there is not one single thing that makes me think that what’s best for us, is a last-minute political reprieve that we use as an excuse to change nothing and continue doing what we’ve been doing. It wouldn’t break the cycle or stop the decline, it would allow the decline to continue with less worry and more walking around money.
God doesn’t care about parties, he cares about people.
Government and systems of authority are things he allows us to pass time. He uses them for His purposes, but they are otherwise unnecessary to Him.
His only goal, the one single point to all of this….. Is to change our sinful hearts, that we may see the truth of His Word, accept the salvation offered us through His Son Jesus Christ, confess and repent of our sin and allow the working of the Holy Spirit in our lives to transform us into His image……. that we might be spared separation from Him for eternity, in darkness and suffering. Because He loves us THAT much.
If you were a parent and your precious children were hell-bent on destroying themselves and others, would you:
- enable them to continue unobstructed, hearts unchanged.
- do everything in your power to stop them, even if it meant allowing them to feel the consequences of their choices, to careen towards rock bottom in hopes it provides enough impact to cause brokenness, to oppose and even orchestrate their failure to prevent them from continuing to abuse themselves.
If it was my child, I’d do anything……make them stay, make them go, move out, move in, give stuff, take stuff……I’d throw a party to disguise an intervention. I’d throw everything at them, including the kitchen sink- to stop them from destruction, to make them change. And, I am sinful, flawed and incapable of perfect love.
What’s best for us, for His children, is to have a good enough reason to change everything we are doing. To be motivated to repent and fully know that our only hope is Christ, to abandon everything we ever trusted more, loved more, wanted more and thought we needed more than Him, to fully and finally know that nothing else matters but Him. To see the truth so clearly that we ask, even beg, for Him to save us and change us.
Are you ready for the part that should really bother you?
Politics is not the answer or Savior. Presidents are mere men.
He intends to change hearts and minds through the Church.
He intends to do that through you.
And, when we are unavailable to motivate hearts to change by sharing the hope and glory of the Truth, should we choose to believe …… He uses the discomfort and reality of the Lie, we chose instead.
The other day I turned on a show Berk likes called Tiny Houses. She was watching and I was listening from the kitchen. It’s different when you only hear the audio. I was amazed how many times in a couple episodes I heard, “We just don’t want the responsibility, we want to be able to do what we want, anywhere we want.” “We want to spend our money on experiences, on ourselves, going where we want…buying what we want.” “I don’t take care of anyone else, it’s just me…this is about living how I want to live.” “This is living!” “This is freedom!”
I asked Berk, “What do you think they would do if they had kids or had to care for someone else like Mimi The Great, at home?” Berk laughed, “They would move out so fast! There’s no way they could stay there. There’s only room for them!” Isn’t that the truth? The right motivation changes everything.
Right now, the world fits us perfectly and we are just the right fit for it. As long as it’s comfortable and feels like freedom, we’ll never want to leave. But, it’s not our home and we were never meant to love it or keep it.
So what’s our Heavenly Father to do with His big, big House and all it’s rooms prepared and waiting……. And, us with our tiny hearts, totally content- in tiny houses?
He will motivate us to move out.
A perfect fit here, does not fit us for Heaven. And, that IS His only goal.
This is our intervention.
Beware the kitchen sink.
It is coming. It is for our good.
