I haven't felt strongly one way or another about a candidate that's up for election... ever. I typically don't think either side is "right" (they're both imperfect), and while they both have some good ideas, they also tend to have some terrible ones. I also believe (and I think the Constitution may just back me up here...) that the President isn't a dictator, and that you can write your congressperson if you oppose or support anything the President does. There's no reason to complain when the power is in your pen!
What I do feel strongly about is that my citizenship is in heaven primarily - and that I am citizen of America secondarily and only temporarily. American Christians tend to confuse that. We think that this nation is the Promised Land, and that God wouldn't let anything happen to let it fall apart. We put a lot more worth into material, physical, and temporal things than we should (I am so guilty here!), and "in it not of it" can be hard to live out.
What did I mean when I said that we tend to think "that God wouldn't let anything happen to let it fall apart"?
When God says, "For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope" (Jeremiah 29:11 ESV), at that point, Israel is still going to be captive for seven decades - and the Israelites are His people! The "welfare" and "future" and "hope" are all manifested in Jesus Christ. God has a vastly different picture of what welfare/prosperity is than we do.
Isaiah 55:8-9 (ESV) says this:
For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
neither are your ways my ways, declares the LORD.
For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways
and my thoughts than your thoughts.
And you can't forget the story of the Tower of Babel - Genesis 11:1-9 (ESV):
Now the whole earth had one language and the same words. And as people migrated from the east, they found a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there. And they said to one another, “Come, let us make bricks, and burn them thoroughly.” And they had brick for stone, and bitumen for mortar. Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be dispersed over the face of the whole earth.” And the LORD came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of man had built. And the LORD said, “Behold, they are one people, and they have all one language, and this is only the beginning of what they will do. And nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them. Come, let us go down and there confuse their language, so that they may not understand one another's speech.” So the LORD dispersed them from there over the face of all the earth, and they left off building the city. Therefore its name was called Babel, because there the LORD confused the language of all the earth. And from there the LORD dispersed them over the face of all the earth.
The key to remember is that God will be glorified no matter what happens to America (or any country), and that our lives should glorify Him first.
I'm not trying to be political - but we do have some thinking and praying to do as Christians in America.
Love,
E
PS - our trip was great! We're ready for another vacation... and hoping to go camping soon!!
