Here are just a few examples of bad leaders from the Bible:
1) The leaders during Jesus’ time oversaw his
murder. It was tragic and awful, but it was also God’s plan being carried out
exactly as he had planned. God was in control.
2) Esther’s
king had some pretty bad qualities: murderer, ignorant, mistreated women,
racist, sexist, arrogant. God used Esther to save an entire group of people. If
she had chickened out, the Bible says God would have found someone else to
carry out his plan, but she was encouraged by her uncle who told her that maybe
she was made for “such a time as this.” God was in control.
3) King
Nebuchadnezzar threatened to murder anyone who didn’t bow down and worship him
and his Gods. God was in control when Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were
thrown into the furnace. They lived and King Nebuchadnezzar believed in their
God.
4) Consider the story of Moses. The Egyptian king
was mistreating the Israelite slaves. Yet years and years before this became a
problem, God had already been working out his plan and putting the right people
in exactly the right positions. Moses ended up having to flee Egypt, but he
made the right connections and was able to carry out God’s plan to save all the
Israelites. Even when an entire sea was in their way, God was in control. The
same God who worked miracles to save them, is still doing so today.
These are just 4 examples. I also need to point out that the
Christians living underneath these rulers all faced extremely difficult
decisions. Moses’ mother had to break the law and hide Moses to keep him alive.
Jesus never would have been hung on the cross if his parents hadn’t listened to
the angel and fled to Egypt to hide for a few years. Esther had to risk her
life. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego fully planned on being killed for the
stand they took.
When I say that God is in control, I’m not saying that I
think everything in America is going to be smiles and roses. I’m just saying
that God has a plan. God can do impossible things. God was in the past, he’s in
the present, and he’s also seen the future, so he knows exactly what needs to
happen. The next four years might be the beginning of murdering Christians in
the United States, but I would still know that God is in control, and that it
is all to carry out his plan. The suffering we face on Earth is nothing
compared to what we have to look forward to in eternity.
I do not think God is so small that an uncovered political
scandal can surprise him.
I do not think God is so small that he gets worried when a
candidate has a plan that goes against the Bible.
One day every knee will bow before God. For the time being,
he is still giving us time to decide if we will accept his forgiveness and
surrender to him. One day that time will run out and he will take up his
rightful place as King on Earth as well as in Heaven. He will set up his kingdom
here, and his reign will be purpose. Since we’re still in the period of waiting
and decision making, God is allowing humans to exercise their free will and
make decisions on their own. Some humans make pretty crappy decisions like
choosing to murder police officers or shooting members of a particular church or
recruiting people to strap on bombs and kill members of a particular race or
nationality or religion.
As a human, this would cause me to freak out and try
desperately to “regain control.” Except that I don’t see the big picture. I see
isolated events and I wonder. I’m tempted to worry. I imagine what the future
might hold. I wonder what it felt like for people who went through similar
scary times in the past.
God doesn’t wonder. He doesn’t freak out. He doesn’t have to
regain control because he hasn’t lost it. In the Old Testament he talks about
giving nations over to their depravity. Isn’t that what’s happening here in
America so often? People want to do wrong and are even proud of it. God doesn’t
like it, and he doesn’t approve of it, but he’s giving us free will. He could
wipe us all out with a giant flood again if he wanted to, but he already
promised not to do that again, and I believe his promises. God was there when
people suffered under horrible leaders in the past. He was with Jews living
under Hitler. Jesus is God so he definitely knows what it feels like to have
leaders that don’t support Christians. He is in countries right now were
Christians are meeting in basements with contraband Bibles risking their lives
to talk about him. He sees America’s future and the future of the whole world.
He’s already written to let us know what to expect in the future, so it won’t
be a surprise. His plan is still on track.
When I say God is in control, I mean he already knows who
will win the election. If he had a reason for the other candidate to win, then
the other candidate would win. I know that whoever our next president is, I
will pray for that person and accept that God has placed them in authority. If
that leader wants to require me to do something that goes against my ability to
worship and obey God, then I will place God’s law over America’s law, but if we
simply have a difference of opinion, I will respectfully do my best to be
persuasive but also open to the possibility that maybe what that leader wants
is also what God wants, and sometimes I’m wrong.
When I say God is in control, I don’t use that as an excuse
not to do my duty. It is still important for me to pray, to read the Bible to
learn more about God’s character and revealed will for me, to make difficult
decisions, to be as informed about the election decisions as possible, to vote
in the way that I believe will be most honoring to God (note: in the way that I believe.
I might be wrong, but I still think I need to be active just like Jesus,
Esther, Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego, Moses, and Moses’ mother were all active.)
I’m extremely thankful that I don’t feel worried that I may lose my life or be
thrown in prison for voting the way that I do.
Psalm 2:4, 6
The one enthroned in
Heaven laughs; the Lord scoffs at them.
“I have installed my
king on Zion, my holy mountain.”
God can laugh because he is in control. He always has been,
and he always will be. He can laugh like I laugh when the tennis ball rolls
under the bed and my dog thinks life is over and starts panicking because he
can’t get to the ball. I know I can bend down and retrieve it with no trouble
at all. My dog will be just fine for a few seconds without it, but he is so
near-sighted that he is blinded by his present predicament. I don’t want to
belittle the tragedies that face our country and our world, and God is
heartbroken over the death and destruction that surround us, but he sees the big
picture and he WILL get the tennis ball for us and right everything that is
wrong with the world in his time.
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