Some time ago, I was sitting on the stairs with my grandson. He is a cute little blond fellow of about 2 years old just learning to talk in full sentences. I was yawning and said, “Honey, I am so tired.”
He said, “Grandma, go to sleep.”
“Who will watch you if I go to sleep?”
“I will watch myself,” he replied.
“What will you do if you get in trouble?” I smiled.
He didn’t skip a beat, “I will put myself in timeout.”
Children are so guileless and unassuming. They don’t weigh words and predict what will happen if choices are made; they don’t plan out their responses to please the crowd. They just act from innocence and tender feelings. They are blatantly honest. What would the world be like during an election cycle if we could trust our politicians like children?
We are again in the middle of a primary election, and again we realize that politics is the art of telling people what they want to hear. Truth, on the other hand, is telling it like it was, is and eventually will become – no hazing, hem hawing or beating around the bush. No excuses. No bluffing. Just the plain un-airbrushed truth. Not a cardboard figure painted by the media. Not a makeover to sell the gig. Plain and simple. The journey is an open book for all to read. I stand for right and justice every time. I don’t fear the false witnesses with their lie-weaving, wagging tongues. They can spin their lies in tiny half-truths and spread them with gnawing sound bites, but truth seekers will always uncover the lie. Oh, for a politician like that.
What if a politician said, “My Savior is my judge, and I face Him every night and every morning. I know I must answer for my choices. My right hand knows what my left hand does. My heart and head are connected by a firm desire to serve my God. My actions are in full-blown daylight. No dark-shadow rooms with sleazy deals and backdoor promises. I surround myself with honest, good-hearted people who will labor side by side with me to save liberty, freedom and the Constitution. I am who I say I am, and I do what I say I will do. My voting record and my speeches are never at variance. Prove me and you will find my integrity.”
Oh, to find a candidate like that.
I wish we had a Moses or a Joshua, maybe even a young David to fight our Goliaths. A Joseph who was sold into Egypt would be nice. He would know what to do in this economically uncertain time because he had a direct channel always tuned into God. What about the fiery furnace guys – Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego – who refused to kneel before the idols of the king even under strict command and pain of death? I would even be glad for a Daniel who trusted God even in the den of ferocious lions.
Where is our modern George Washington who refused to be crowned king? He chose to be president, which was a title without much grandeur of significance in his time. Where is our Lincoln who led us through one of the darkest hours of our nation’s history? He said, “Character is like a tree and reputation like a shadow. The shadow is what we think of it; the tree is the real thing.”
Politicians, as all of us, prove their character by the things they do and not what they say. Politicians have the uncanny ability to forget their past deeds and expect us to accept their statements even though we see them saying and doing the exact opposite on another occasion. I wonder sometimes if politicians think they are living in a one-dimensional box where others can only see what they want them to see, or they think their audiences are amnesiacs who can’t remember from one sound bite to the next.
Maybe those politicians don’t have their audiences figured right. They know we are not listening to the sound bites at all. We are on our devices engaging in our favorite game, watching the latest movie or just plain texting our days away. They think we are too busy to pay attention to sound bites and little lies that change the Constitution, incrementally locking one more link in the chain around the neck of our freedom. Politicians gamble that we are so far gone that we don’t care what happens to our country. Maybe they are right.
God forbid!
Most Americans feel about the country like Sir Walter Scott wrote in “The Lay of the Last Minstrel”:
Breathes there the man, with soul so dead,
Who never to himself hath said,
This is my own, my native land!
Whose heart hath ne’er within him burn’d
As home his footsteps he hath turn’d,
From wandering on a foreign strand!
The American people are a slumbering dragon that is about to wake up. One sleepy green eye is focusing on the treasure of freedom that is being stolen by the moral pygmies in our government. The dragon’s hot breath is mounting inside making ready for explosions of righteous indignation that will make the Hobbit’s battle look like child’s play.
I trust that somewhere there is a Moses who will, through the power and grace of God, bring down the plagues of Egypt and with his staff, part the Red Sea and allow the righteous to walk through the river of adversity on dry ground. Of course, the righteous must put God first and give homage to Christ, who is the king and savior of this land.
I believe God will raise up a Joseph of Egypt to teach the followers of Christ to prosper in these uncertain economic times. He will teach us to put away our toys and focus on things that really matter: God, family, food, shelter and caring for the poor among us. He will teach us to forgive and bring together our broken and blind. He will motivate us to put on color blinders to see all people as children of God. He will help us see there is power and protection in serving the God of this land.
There will be those who, like Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, will honor God despite political winds. Those who honor God, God will honor. He promises that. We have seen God fulfill his promise in the past, and we will see it in the future. The fiery furnace was not a fairy tale for children to enjoy. It was a miracle given to honor those who honored God. If it happened then, it can happen again.
We will see Daniel come out safe from the lion’s den. These men will be among us and will seem like ordinary people, but God will make them strong with His power. They will work miracles in His name. He will teach them to prosper, but we must recognize His hand in our lives and rise up to become the champions of the future.
Perhaps we are the Moseses, Josephs and Daniels of the future. Perhaps we will lead people from lions' dens. Maybe we are the ones who will rise up and call down the powers of heaven. God is no respecter of persons, but he favors those who follow Him and keep His commandments.
If we are going to call down the powers of heaven, we must throw our idols to the “moles and the bats,” as Isaiah says, and stand for truth no matter where we find it. We must seek the gift of discernment to sort through a media filled with too many opinions and not enough facts. If we are the needles that will wake the slumbering dragon to save our freedom from the politicians who have lost touch with the truth, we must pray and vote for those leaders who will champion the truth and the Constitution because God honors those who honor Him. He will honor a president who leads in righteousness as He did Washington and Lincoln. We need those heroes who have childlike honesty to tell it like it is without a personal agenda or secret backdoor friendships. Someone who believes God is the same yesterday and forever and is a God who will hold us accountable for the choices we make.
