The New President

With the elections finally over people seem to be left with many different emotions. Whether Obama supporters or not, we are faced with the difficult decision to cast our personal feelings aside and work towards a common goal. That goal lies in uniting as a country, as citizens, as statesmen, as neighbors and as family towards standing behind our president and the newly appointed staff and holding unwaveringly to the hope we profess in God’s control over all of it before it was even a thought process to anyone. I find it so incredibly easy to want my way or have my thought process win out and when it doesn’t I’m left secretly hoping that the other plan will fall apart and everyone will see how I was right and the error of their ways. Even forsaking my need to be right, it’s still so very easy to want Obama and his staff to fail, to want them to pull some crazy stunt where we can point our fingers and say “I told you so.” When we’re logical we would never actually wish that considering the grave consequences that our nation might face in light of such disasters which Obama’s failings could futuristically include. However, at the present, we are prone to wish ill upon them and hope people will do like they have done Bush and wish he never were president and wish our nation did not look to him as our leader.

On that note, I realized today how we tend to point the finger at Bush and his administration for the economy, the lives lost in the Middle East, and other choices that most Americans have come to believe as poor. But you know, I think we as Christians are the ones that failed Bush. As I sat with a friend today and prayed for our nation, prayed for its new leaders and the decisions they have ahead, I realized I can’t recall the last time I prayed for President Bush. I gave him no protection, no extra confidence, no shield from the enemy, no special word that God would inspire him and lead him in paths of righteousness. I failed President Bush. As a Christian, as a citizen, as a fellow American I had a duty to our president to help him better our nation and to encourage and pray for him that he would lead us in a Godly manner. We have this innate need to blame someone when something doesn’t go like we see it going and President Bush has caught a lot of that flack. As believers and those who stand for the power of our God, it makes me wonder how we will all react to this new presidency. Will we support our new president and unite behind him or will this new season be viewed as something far worse that may damage us as Christians and as individuals?

Whether Barack Obama will lead us in paths of righteousness I do not know. What is certain is that God is not a God of chaos. He’s not a God of freak outs or oopses. He’s not a God sitting in heaven twiddling his thumbs nervously wondering what He’s going to do now that His plan didn’t come true. That’s what we do in our humanness because we’ve decided what’s best instead of looking to an all-knowing God. What’s best doesn’t mean what makes the most sense in our heads or leads us to the most success. What’s best is what God ordains as so to bring about his ends. I wonder how our nation will evolve over the next four years, if we’ll have the life-altering terrorist attack that Biden is so set on or if Obama will tax us to death. But it does no good to worry about tomorrow and it does no good to second guess the plan of God. We must unite and decide to pray for our next president. Pray that Obama makes decisions that will further the kingdom of God and will create in America and across the world believers who truly and wholeheartedly seek the face, the very being of God more than they seek anything else. Obama’s right in a way, It’s time for change. Change from the complacent Christianity that many of us meander through simply to survive instead of standing on God’s promises and living abundantly. Change is coming and I think we as believers must go back to our knees and find our source and pray that He will lead our nation to the Promised Land.