“Our guy won! Our guy won!”
Beyond the hype, let me help you process this event with a little sobriety. As of this morning, the only person who won anything last night was Donald Trump. Nobody is winning when our country is twenty trillion dollars in debt. Nobody is winning when our national media is being proven to disgracefully release misinformation in order to accomplish their own self-serving agendas. Nobody is winning when Russian hackers are the only reason that we the people have any clue to the level of depravity and deception that is taking place between the government and its people at the highest levels! Nobody is winning when our country elects its leaders with such a small margin of victory indicating the level of disunity, distrust, and disregard existing between neighbors. And nobody is winning when polls reveal that a significant percentage of voters entered the voting booth with the perspective of voting for “the lesser of two evils” or against the candidate they disliked more, instead of for the candidate they supported.
I don’t know, maybe I see life through different lenses. Maybe I look at our political system for at least the last 30 years and see government officials thumbing their noses at the American people as they do what they want to do and what benefits them and what lines their pockets despite what they have promised or what their constituents would have desired. Maybe I see how power has corrupted those who have probably gotten into the game initially with good intentions. Maybe I see that our system of government is an arrogant and corrupt institution and the American people at this point in history are not winning the game we are all playing against a self-serving, lobby appeasing, covert law-breaking/constitution bending process…Maybe that is what I see but I don’t believe it has to remain that way. And maybe that’s going to change…Maybe, a win is on the horizon…That would certainly do my heart good…We shall see I guess…
Even considering the current state of our political system, I still think that we have been dealt a hand that is playable regardless of how we feel today. It’s not a flush by any means, but we can still win if we play it right…
So what’s the play today? How do we make the best of THIS hand today? What do we do today as a people? What do I do today as a pastor?
1. I hope – Hope is where faith begins and is the substance of the release of mountain moving faith. I hope that Mr. Trump surrounds himself with wise, balanced, unity seeking, qualified, informed advisors to make up where he lacks and that he staffs his weaknesses to bring together groups politically and socially that are heavily divided. I hope that the weight of the task set before him is a humbling realization that he submits to and rightfully balances him. I hope that he understands that this office is so much bigger than him and he humbly addresses his responsibility to our nation with the fear of God and the understanding that to fail in this office has world and potentially generational fallout. And I hope that he submits his will and his flaws to the direction of Almighty God.
2. I pray – I pray for the man who will sit in the most powerful seat in the world as the president of our great country! He probably thinks he knows, but he’s about to see what’s behind the curtain and be faced with the sobering reality of what it actually means to sit in that seat. I don’t believe any man or woman is really fully equipped to fill that role. And he is going to need a lot of support in order to be what the world (and our political system) needs him to be. Like has happened with every president in my lifetime, he will change his position on some issues that he may have ignorantly assumed he understood. He will be faced with some challenges that will have the capacity to level him emotionally. His weaknesses will have every opportunity to be amplified in a worldwide glass house for all to see! He will need my prayers in order to lead the country and leave it with any stability for my son and future generations.
Side note: No matter who you voted for or how you feel about the results of this election, or how you feel about him as a person, if you are a God-fearing individual, you would be a fool to fail to begin praying for him and our country TODAY or to hope for his failure. As history reveals, when our president loses or fails in his decision making, WE ALL LOSE! It’s not about our own arrogant need to be right or to have the ability to say, “See, I told you so…!” If that’s your attitude, you need a humbling of your own and in my experience, it will SUCK when you get it! If you believe in the power of prayer and do nothing with your prayers because you are mad with the results of the election…then you actually care more about what you think and being right than for the good of our nation…OR you don’t really believe what you claim to believe at all…
So as a God-fearing American, I pray that he is directed and advised with wisdom even if it means he has to change his position or humble himself on issues that he has been wrong about. And I for one recognize, prayer is power, and in this case it is likely going to take lots of prayer. . . Lots and lots of prayer… So, I pray…
3. I believe – I believe our country is greater than our differences. I believe our potential exceeds the limitations of our leadership. I believe our resolve to succeed no matter the level of opposition has remained since the American Revolution and has sustained us through world wars, depressions, recessions, terroristic attacks and corrupt government officials… And I believe that as one nation, under God, indivisible, we who stand for liberty, integrity, strength, righteousness, and justice will be the continued preservation for our great nation no matter what side of the aisle we sit upon or who sits in the seat of presidency (I will concede that the whoever sits there has the potential to create significant hurdles. . . But I also believe that our resolve is greater than our limitations.)
As you can see, like you, I have a lot of thoughts today accompanying a lot of emotions. These emotions and thoughts need to be centered and grounded with Godly perspective. I certainly see the significant “human” hurdle we were presented with both of our candidates and that remains with our president elect. I started out by saying that the only person who has “won” in this election was Donald Trump… and as of today, I stand by that position. BUT we don’t really know how it will pan out for us…
Time will tell as history unfolds what has been decided in the presidential election of 2016…In the meantime I hope, I pray, I believe…and I humbly recognize that given the totality of the circumstances (with our prayers and God’s invitation to co-labor), the potential is certainly there for future victories…
Although, some believe that the history of this vote is its own win, at this point, none of us has really “won”, But I will end this post with a single word of Hope and Belief that our prayers are powerful and our God is greater than any of our hurdles when I say, “none of us has really won… yet…”
Yet…