Dear Daughters,
A late summer job after my junior year in high school was titled Clod Picker. As you might guess, I was involved with the potato harvest in Idaho. The job went like this: A huge potato harvester was brought into the field of ripe potatoes. On top of the harvester was a conveyer belt bringing up stones, dirt clods, sand and potatoes from the land beneath us. My primary job was to discern which were potatoes and which weren’t and toss out the latter. Difficult as it was to determine the difference between those objects, I must have caught on quickly because Mr. Hohnhorst kept me on for the entire harvest – great job security.
Oddly enough, as I watch the election process in our country I am reminded of my summer job decades ago. I am saddened, not only by our choice of candidates but the judgment and blame that is being tossed from side to side.
I have read many op-eds from all viewpoints and I lament that we Christians are sounding way too much like the world.
As I remember, Jesus never criticized or condemned Caesar Augustus, Herod, Pontius Pilate, or any other governing leaders of His time. I also don’t recollect any time when we as the church are instructed to go out and ridicule, debase, or mock our leaders.
Jesus never disparaged the barbaric Roman government in which He was under authority. He never said, Those Romans, they are the most unjust, deplorable people ever. There is racism, no respect for life, our taxes are out of control, in fact that older Herod even ran my family out of the country when I was a baby. He wanted to kill me!
Jesus knew He belonged to another kingdom and was under the authority of His Father the King. He obediently prayed for wisdom and went about doing good as the Son of God.
I wonder what this world would look like if instead of judging, slandering and dissecting every news clip, we prayed for those in authority over us as instructed in the letter to Timothy:
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 Timothy 2:1-2
And also in the letter to Titus:
Remind the people to be subject to rulers and authorities, to be obedient, to be ready to do whatever is good, to slander no one, to be peaceable and considerate, and to show true humility toward all men. Titus 3:1-2
I am continually amazed at the hate, trash talk, and arrogance in many videos, FB posts and articles that abound. It seems like we are bent on destroying each other, ripping apart and dividing our country from within.
And, of course, how does any country/business/church/family/marriage fall apart? From within. Bickering, slander, gossip, ridicule, distrust and judgment.
If you read the history of Rome, Russia, Israel, and any other country that has collapsed, you will find that people became decadent, each person doing what was right in his own eyes, paying no attention to the law of the land, but only demanding their rights, not taking responsibility for themselves or others.
Whenever absolute truth (right and wrong) is lost, everyone becomes their own god, making up the rules as they go. What feels good and makes me happy is the only barometer by which to measure living.
The natural end of such is anarchy, resulting in totalitarianism. The masses of people are deemed unworthy of making good choices so there is chaos, which gives rise easily to a dictator to control people who are out of control.
In the early primary stages of the Presidential election there were many fine men and women from which to choose on either ticket. They were people of character, of honesty, simplicity and substance. But here we are today, and many are mad. Mad enough to not vote at all.
I am reminded of a quote by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr:
The real problem is that through our scientific genius we’ve made of the world a neighborhood, but through our moral and spiritual genius we’ve failed to make of it a brotherhood.
Now as Christians, if we are a part of another Kingdom – the Kingdom of Heaven – shouldn’t we behave differently than the ways of the kingdom of the United States of America?
I believe that Solomon, King of Israel back around 950 B.C., although a flawed human being just like all of us, had the wisdom of God revealed to him in a dream when He spoke the following:
If my people, who are called by my name, shall humble themselves and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and heal their land. 2 Chronicles 7:14
So, if we are truly followers of Jesus, the first thing we need to do is to humble ourselves. God will not humble us, He may bring about circumstances to help with that, but we need to deliberately humble ourselves under His authority.
Turn from our wicked ways. I was quite offended when I first read that verse many years ago. I thought, I’m not wicked, that’s those other people who are violent, murderers, drug dealers, child molesters… How can a child of God be wicked?
Any 12-step program will require that you take an honest assessment about yourself. So I read the list of things God is displeased with: haughty eyes, greed, gluttony, gossip, a lying tongue, slanderers…. I was guilty and saw many of those attributes in myself.
In fact, true religion, says James, is caring for the orphans and the widows, the outcast, the foreigner, the poor and forgotten.
Pray and seek the face of God. That doesn’t just sound like good moral living, does it? It means to continually pray for wisdom in our every word, action, and attitude. There are people all around us who are lonely, discouraged, weak, hopeless and despairing. If we are followers of Jesus, we are required to treat others with kindness, grace and respect. In others, we see the face of God.
If we truly took our faith seriously, we would not have time to criticize, demonize, or judge those who do not think like or act like us.
The most amazing thing about this verse, though, is the ending. It says if we do humble ourselves, confess our sins, turn from our wicked ways and seek God’s face,
He Will Heal Our Land.
OK, now I’m thinking you are saying sure, that is going to heal America? Don’t we have other things we can do that will help more?
Remember Gideon, the obscure weakling written about in the book of Judges? It certainly is not a well-known story, but amazing nonetheless.
As the story goes, an angel came to Gideon one night and said “Hail Mighty Warrior!” Gideon looked around wondering who the angel was talking to, because he replied, Oh, I am from the weakest clan of Israel and I am the youngest in my family.
God told him to get an army together to fight their enemies, the Midianites- who had been oppressing the Israelites for years. Gideon turned up with 32,000 men. The enemy armies numbered 135,000.
True to God’s character, he said Gideon’s army was too large and began to pare it down. After sending away 22,000 men who were afraid and fearful, Gideon ended up with 10,000 to the enemies’ 135,000, so now they were outnumbered by only 13 to 1.
Again God said there were too many in the army, so he cut it back to 300. Now that is a ratio of 1 to 450. Impossible, I would think, to win a battle. But when the battle started, God caused the Midianites to flee in confusion and destroy each other. Gideon’s army won – a completely unexpected outcome given the ratio between the armies.
That’s how our God does battle.
Now, back to the clod-picking job. My work was to hold on to the potatoes, not keep throwing the dirt and sand and rocks around at my fellow workers. What I see is dirt, accusations, tweets, rocks, retweets, talking heads, videos, sand, and much else flying around.
Hold on to the good, do good, humble yourself, pray, turn from evil…..
Try to remember – We are in a wrestling match between good and evil. But our struggle is not against flesh and blood, it is against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.
I wonder – if we all started humbling ourselves, confessing our sins, praying for those in authority and caring for the weak – what change would occur in our country?
I’m willing to do my part, will you join me?
Love, Mom
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