Faith Through the Journey

Last week I wrote about why we should have hope and not despair of the condition of our country. The events of the week within the government, however, caused my renewed resolve to be hopeful to be sorely tested. More than once last week my stomach was in knots as I followed the back-and-forth disagreements unfolding in Washington. Amidst the loud rhetoric I kept coming back to a statement I heard many years ago while going through the Experiencing God Bible study. Very simply but profoundly stated, “God is God and I am not”. God does not expect men to understand His ways – after all, only God is God. None of the affairs of men surprise Him, and He is not walking around heaven wringing His hands. The Bible does speak to how we should conduct ourselves amongst one another. Isaiah 1:18 says “Come now, let us reason together”. Other passages state that God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power, love and a sound mind, and that God is not the author of confusion. The enemy of our souls, Satan, has come to steal, kill and destroy. While we are certain that the dissension within the political leadership of our country is not what God would choose as the best way to handle things, have our leaders even THOUGHT to ask for heavenly guidance? That course of action is not without precedent among our leaders, dating back to 1774 as recorded by Thomas Jefferson during the Continental Congress of 1774 with regard to the Boston port bill, by which it would be shut by England on June 1, 1774: “We were under conviction of the necessity of arousing our people from the lethargy into which they had fallen as to passing events; and the thought that the appointment of a day of general fasting and prayer would be most likely to call up and alarm their attention…we cooked up a resolution for appointing the first day of June, on which the port bill was to commence, for a day of fasting, humiliation and prayer, to implore heaven to avert us from the evils of civil war, to inspire us with firmness in support of our rights, and to turn the hearts of the king and parliament to moderation and justice.”

Could God be trying – again – to get our attention? We didn’t understand the profound Biblical roots of the events of 9/11, as foretold in Isaiah 9:10; we didn’t understand that the financial crisis of 2008 also had significant Biblical connections, as well as the economic difficulties we have faced since that time. I know that looking at current events and tying them together with the Bible isn’t a strongly espoused viewpoint. But if we believe, as our founders did, that “God governs in the affairs of men” and that we do have a Creator who has granted us the rights of “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”, then we can’t shut Him out of solutions to our nation’s problems. Who knows but that a “day of humiliation, fasting and prayer” could be a significant step toward unity and agreement among our leaders? We will never know unless we try, IF those who lead us are not too proud or arrogant to do so.