THE US presidential election aroused all kinds of passions in the US and around the world. The election taught many of us (I’d venture to say all of us) numerous lessons, whether we wanted it to or not…
Readers of my blog will know I’m a Trump supporter: my intention here is not to make a political point but to illustrate a spiritual truth.
At school my two teenage sons were intimidated into keeping their preference for Donald Trump silent for over a year, while those posing as being “tolerant” and “open-minded”-students and teachers- derided Mr Trump and mocked his supporters. Bullying is alive and well in schools. The intimidation and indoctrination was such that my youngest son believed he was virtually the only Trumpist around. That changed on the pre-election day when the school had its own vote and Trump won.
As we all know, the same thing happened in the wider world of politics and the media. They’d spent so much time and money trying to convince us that Mr Trump was utterly reprehensible and un-electable that they believed their own rhetoric. When the big day came they were telling us that he and his party were about to go down in a landslide defeat. The opposite was true. Gloating turned to tears and consternation. Mr Trump won the election and the Republicans were left in control of congress and senate.
While I’m not about to say that God is on the side of the Republicans and not the Democrats, there are certain valuable lessons to be learned, and some have already been learned by my sons.
First, don’t trust what the media tell you. Don’t trust their views or their judgment of character. The television can lie. Those wrapped in wealth and power and lights can lie. In fact, don’t automatically assume without question that anyone in authority knows what they profess to know, or that they are likely to be impartial or telling the absolute truth.
Second, hold proudly and firmly to what you know or believe to be true, no matter what the opposition is.
Thirdly, never assume without objective confirmation that when the odds appear to be against you they actually are. Never give up, or in the abridged words of Churchill, “Never, never, never give up”.
And since I’m convinced that there was a spiritual component to this last election, I can’t help using it to illustrate a much more important reality.
In an event recorded in 2 Kings 6:8-23, the king of Aram sent military forces to capture Elisha. They surrounded the city, and when Elisha’s servant saw them he was, not surprisingly, afraid. But Elisha told him:
“Don’t be afraid. those who are with us are more than those who are with them”.
Elisha prayed for his servant’s eyes to be opened, and the servant saw the hills full of angelic troops ready to defend the two and the city.
Jesus Christ’s kingdom is not of this world (John 18:36) and I’m not at all suggesting that every worldly situation is going to appear to go our way. It won’t always seem to go our way. And sometimes it will seem like being a follower of Jesus Christ is a lonely life, like walking a narrow solitary pathway while everyone else is travelling on the highway. Until, that is, the Great Day when He will come to right all wrongs. The night before that day the forces of godlessness will be convinced they’re on the cusp of victory. It will quickly become radically clear to them, and to us, that the enemies of truth and justice are vastly outnumbered and inescapably on the losing side. Gloating will turn to consternation and defeat.
Fuel for Faith 