When Hillary Clinton conceded to Donald Trump, the collective sigh of relief from conservatives blew a wind of hope all across our nation. Not because so many of us feel that Mr. Trump is the last great hope for America, but because we believe that re-electing the radical liberal machine would have been the last nail in its coffin.
I must admit that this election took me by surprise. I fully expected the Democrat Express, fueled by propagandists posing as journalists, to glide into the station ahead of the Trump Train, loaded with all the baggage those same media elites kept piling on it.
I believe in God. That He answers prayers and He observes behavior. I believe that the Bible tells us what He likes and what He hates. So, I’m not sure if He intervened because of the prayers of the righteous, or in disgust of our celebration of ungodliness. Or maybe a little of both.
But I am convinced He did intervene.
And for that I am grateful.
But I remain concerned.
Will we who believe in the biblical principles upon which this nation was founded bask in the notion that we’ve received a reprieve from the forces that were dismantling those foundational values, and kick-back and enjoy the moment? Or will we rise up with the same fervor in which we voted and insure that these bedrock ideals remain solidly in place by sincerily living them out?
Will we continue to boast In God We Trust while rationalizing away His commands, or will we humbly commit our lives to His ways? Will we continue to allow our judges and politicians to overrule our mandates and tell us we can’t honor Jesus in our schools, or will we keep our mouths shut so we don’t offend those we want to impress? Will we demand that our courts acknowledge that marriage is the cornerstone of human civilization and has always been a covenant between a man and a woman, or will we be quiet so we don’t bring too much attention to our own marital infidelities?
Will we become more spiritually minded like we said we would before the election?
What I am afraid of is that, instead of seeing this change in our government as a gift from God for us to effect change by starting with ourselves, we will grow complacent and our own spiritual commitments will dwindle.
Conservatives won the election – our prayers worked! Now, it’s time to celebrate.
No, now it’s time to pray even more. It’s time to pray that we don’t squander this opportunity to strengthen the constitutional liberties which allow us to freely worship God. That America will repent and be revived. That our values will shift back to eternal things instead of the pleasures of sin and the fulfilling of carnal lusts.
It’s time for us to be the Christians we wish our neighbors were. It’s time to imitate the simple and selfless behavior we so admired in the elders of generations past. It’s time we admit that our online giving will never replace our in-person worship in those churches we claim as our own.
It’s time we face up to the fact that we really don’t deserve to spend every other weekend at the lake, and that the woods can never be my church. The Bible tells us what God considers church. Your choosing to ignore it doesn’t mean you’ve found a place where you are closer to Him. It just means you avoid going to the place where God points out your flaws and insecurities, and challenges you to let Him fix them for you.
What some are calling church just might be hell’s foyer. After all, everything on this Earth will melt into a hot mess on God’s judgement day.
You might think this reprieve is just part of the cycle of life, another spin around the political sun. You may not see the hand of God nor care to consider His involvement.
But for those who worried about our country’s future and prayed over the outcome of this election, I pray that your desire to see God at work will not die in the patriotic celebrations of your victory, but that the fires of discontent will burn brighter and brighter until they change you and me, and we become the change we want our nation to experience.
Because until that happens, while the names and faces may change, everything will remain the same.
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The photo above is of the bridge over what would become Table Rock Lake at Kimberling City, Missouri. My father was the last person to drive across the old bridge that crossed the river far below the new bridge. After he crossed, they began tearing the old bridge down. They only tore half of it down – the rest remains and is a popular diving spot.
