Why not, Lord?

Today is a difficult day for most of us.    Even as I held my children close this morning, holding back tears as I thought of the days of darkness and storm that seem inevitable... that their futures are so much different than what we know now ... I was encouraged that our hope is in Christ alone, and that God's power extends throughout the universe.  

Perhaps some of this perspective will help...

For those who don't have time to read this all, I am copying and pasting the prayer from the bottom here:

Lord, calm my heart right now, and help me to realize that dependence on You, and great awareness of my dependence on You, is a better place to be – the best place to be - better than the comfort of an election won.  Help me to embrace the reality of the times in which we live with eager anticipation of the revelation of your power and glory in the midst of the darkness.   May my hope be found in you alone!

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Why not, Lord?

I spent a lot of time over the past few days (and weeks) asking the Lord for mercy and crying out for leaders to be elected who stood for life and righteousness.  When God doesn't answer our prayers, then what?

Yesterday as I prayed in the early evening hours, prior to any polls closing, the Lord whispered to me, “You know, you don’t deserve it.”  I knew right away what he meant.  America did not deserve a president who would stand for life and morality.  Outside of pockets of praying Christians, there had really been very little in the way of repentance and turning from our wicked ways.  America had not humbled herself and prayed as the Lord requires.  

Now, at that moment, when the Lord said, “You don’t deserve it,” I still held onto hope.  After all, God sometimes graces us with the blessings we do not deserve.

But I was starting to get the picture, and the following became clear through the watches of the night (for though I went to sleep not knowing the result – in fact knowing only that it was a close race -- my spirit knew then what was to come and began a dialogue with the Lord.)

These are my thoughts from the watches of the night:

First, I realized as I was falling asleep that we live in an America that is much, much different than the picture I have had in my head as I prayed.  The people are much more interested in their own individual agendas (particularly comfort and entertainment)  than they are in being “one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”   For the most part, this America cares little about life and morality and is oblivious to the erosion of our freedoms.  While I have refused to acknowledge it, this nation is under a strong delusion that it does not need God and that holiness and righteousness are irrelevant.  (Ok, I admit it: my picture of America was naïve – a product of spending very little time watching news or tv or movies… but I really liked my picture and it is hard to give it up.)

Second, while this election result naturally makes our hearts mourn, at the same time the result reveals a bigger picture of the times in which we live – a picture that should make our hearts rejoice with anticipation.  We naturally mourn the “could have been,” –  the four years of turning our nation in a more positive direction that we could have had with Romney as President – there is another, more far-reaching agenda here – moving toward the return of our Lord Jesus.   Our hearts should rejoice because the times are closer than we thought.  Of course we don’t have to like these times, because they aren’t going to be easy … but at least we can comfort ourselves that these times are one more sign that the returning of our Lord and Savior is nearer than ever before.

            (Yesterday while we were praying for God to give us a righteous leader, we had a quiet time of prayer in which Grace (age 12) received a picture from the Lord.  In this picture there were many brides, trying on dresses and getting ready for a wedding and she knew that they represented the bride of Christ.  Then, she saw Jesus, the bridegroom, and he was already dressed and ready for the wedding; in fact, he was eager for the wedding!)

The Spirit and the bride say, “Come!  Come, Lord Jesus!”

Third, I was reminded that the plans of the Lord cannot be thwarted.  “All these things must happen, and then the end will come.”  I believe that there was a plan A that we could have embraced but have - as a nation- refused.  However,  God's plan B, though harder, will make us stronger.  The reality is that this is good, because we will need to develop that strength more and more, the closer we come to the end times.  The tough times that will result from the next four years will strengthen us in many ways, if we are willing to turn our hearts to the Lord in prayer and surrender to his ways.  

Yes, this result will be hard, but hard will be good for us.   Even though we can hope in our hearts that things won’t be too bad, the reality is that they will go from bad to worse.  We must prepare ourselves.  But we should not be discouraged because being prepared is the right thing for this season – the times in which we live.  If Romney had won, the times would have only been delayed, not avoided – which is clear from the Word.   

Before the election, when I thought about the tough times coming if Obama won, I did realize that it would make us more dependent on God, and I knew that result, alone, might be the deciding factor.  But now that it is reality, I don’t like it one bit.  Right now I am working on calming my heart to admit that dependence on God, and great awareness of my dependence on Him, is a better place to be – the best place to be.

Likewise, our focus on the Lord will be stronger because of the times that are coming as a result of this election, too.  The Lord is longing for a pure and spotless bride who is making herself ready for the wedding supper of the lamb, and this election, and its result, is just one more way to keep the bride focused in this hour.   Before the election I kept thinking, “After the election I will still pray …,” but I realized that if we elected Romney, the temptation would be very strong to slip into self-reliance as a nation rather than realizing our great dependence on God, and continuing to cry out to God for help.

Another thing that became clear through the watches of the night is that this result is actually a blessing in ways that we cannot know - that this result has actually kept us from perils of death and destruction.  While the people of this nation who have voted to keep a president like Barak Obama are, in large part, a people who are innocent in the sense that they don’t know any better (their eyes don’t see the kingdom reality), there are also some people who support Obama who would have done things that could have made our lives in America nightmarish if the election had gone the other way.  In the middle of the night I heard these words, “This result was the only way to keep Mitt Romney alive.”  (Apparently, this was more of a true threat than I realized.)

In the end, the result of this election is for our protection, not just avoiding extreme civil unrest, but also that that the church will have no choice, as this presidency continues, but to cry out to God for mercy – so that we will put our hope in Jesus alone.   If we had elected Romney, we might have put our hope in Romney and the government.  This way we are going to have to be very dependent on God. This result will help us all to mean it when we sing, “My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus blood and righteousness.  I dare not trust the sweetest frame, but wholly lean on Jesus’ name.”  See song below and in the next post.

“In Christ alone my hope is found
He is my light, my strength, my song
This Cornerstone, this solid ground
Firm through the fiercest drought and storm."

Lord, calm my heart right now, and help me to realize that dependence on You, and great awareness of my dependence on You, is a better place to be – the best place to be - better than the comfort of an election won.  Help me to embrace the reality of the times in which we live with eager anticipation of the revelation of your power and glory in the midst of the darkness.   May my hope be found in you alone!

We also pray for President Obama, who now has a second chance.  We pray for his salvation - soon! - and for the turning of his heart toward life and righteousness.   Lord, you are the God of second chances and transformation -- and with You all things are possible.  Let it be!