This election cycle has
brought many of us to our knees. We are worried about terrorists, the economy, the
American Dream going down the tubes and the next President. We hear the mantra
about making America great again, but even as people of faith many of us fail
to grasp why a great nation should be important to us. Paul said, “I urge,
then, first of all, that requests, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be
made for everyone— for kings and all those in authority,
that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness” (1 Tim
2:1-2 NIV).
1 comment:
Gail;
-----God is no dope. He makes a way for peace and quiet to be had in even the most tumultuous times. It is just that the heart and mind must be very humble, and one’s ways must move from forgiveness in repentance to sincere desire to do the next thing right. And if the desires are sincere, the doing will be done as well as ability might afford. Peace and quiet is in trusting the Lord to bless whatever you do, feel, or think to some needed good, and that He will make what needs done next apparent by the time it needs done.
-----Peace is not in the absence of pain and turmoil. Although comfort and calm are peaceful, they are not the essence of peace and quiet. Being right with the Lord is. All things serve His purposes. Even the discomforts, pains, turmoil, and distresses of life are purposeful to Him. What those purposes are we no more need to know than we need to know the topography of the planet in the galaxy across the universe from us. But that topography serves His purpose, too, else it would not exist. So, nowhere we can be, no condition we can be in while there, and no amount of scheming against us can remove His offer for us to have peace and quiet and joy in Him. The ugliest Muslim’s dullest sword at my throat is merely a call for me to think right in the Lord and feel right towards him. The pain of such a situation is an aside. The humility of it is…well…what the Bible calls us to be: humble. And the death of it is glorious to the Almighty God, Maker and Ruler of not just the universe, but of all things ever. That God stands for you in your difficulties. What’s there not to be peaceful and quiet about? Nothing can escape His attention. Nothing can fail to serve His purpose.
-----It makes voting easier, too. Of course we will never have the best candidate ever. We have the candidates we have. Vote for the best, or against the worst, it’s all the same. Even waste your vote on one of the third, fourth, or fifth party voices croaking out of the remote dust of the race. “We know that in everything God works for good with those who love Him, who are called according to His purpose. For those whom He foreknew He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, in order that He might be the first-born among many brethren. And those whom He predestined He also called; and those whom He called He also justified; and those whom He justified He also glorified…Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies; who is to condemn? Is it Christ Jesus, who died, yes, who was raised from the dead, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed intercedes for us?…For I am sure that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Rom 8:28-30,33-34,38-39)
-----Peace and quiet are not about this world. They’re about the next. So have peace and quiet in this world by being about the next, too.
Love you all,
Steve Corey
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