A new day

November 5, 2008. The world is a different place today, not better, not worse, but different. Today, for me is jumble of emotions, I am sad, a little angry, dazed and confused, and a little scared. I am also hopeful, thankful, part of me is at peace today, these are the parts I want to think about, concentrate on, thank God for. It's hard to do...but I must.

I have been praying, fasting, reading the Word over the past few months like I never have before. It’s sad that it took a national election to drive me to do this. I have always felt as a though I was a fringe Christian. I wanted all the benefits but was pretty reluctant to put in much of the effort that being a follower of Christ demanded.

I was reluctant to lose some bad habits, some bad attitudes that I have held on to for years. I don’t know why it was so hard for me, but it was.

I suppose the stakes of this election really drove me to rethink my relationship with the Lord. It caused me to realize that my hope is not in things, not in myself and my own ability, and not in which party controls congress or the whitehouse.

I have always prayed that God would speak to me, give me assurance of my own salvation, give me some sign that he loved me, forgave me, and then when I did not feel much better, I began to doubt. Doubt is a powerful enemy. Doubt can cause you to feel like no matter what you do, it’s not good enough. Doubt can cause you to feel like giving up. Doubt is one of the worst emotions you can have, it destroys your hope, robs you of your joy, causes you to lose your will to fight.

This election was the catalyst I needed to get me back into regular prayer time, regular devotions. It was only when I started to come to God, seek him for a reason other than to ask him for some sign he was out there for me, that I started to really feel him.

I do believe that God wants us to pray for ourselves, we are ultimately responsible for only one person, us. But when we start to focus our prayers on someone else, some other cause, pray unselfishly, that we can begin to see God moving in that circumstance and then in our own. It’s like seeing the forest for the first time when you have only been concentrating on the tree right in front of you.

The election of Barack Obama as president is not a mistake, it’s not just chance, it’s not because of anything he did, anything anyone advising him did. His rise to power from a basic unknown over the course of the past 5 years to the most powerful man in the world is part of a plan, it’s a brushstroke in the painting that God started many years ago when Jesus Christ was born.

I am still disappointed, that probably won’t change any time soon. With all the prayers and petitions being made to God for this election, I really believed, or wanted to really believe that God would answer our prayers. He did answer our prayers, not in the way that we wanted or expected maybe, but none the less, he did.

Our hope, my hope is not in anything other than the Lord anymore. I feel a new calling, a new energy actually to get out there and get involved more than I have in the past. I think that many people, myself on the top of the list, were still hanging onto some belief that a man, in this case John McCain, could stem the tide, put a finger in the hole of the leaking dyke. This country and this world have been slowly slipping away down the slippery slope, and no man, no institution, no president can stop it, only God can do that. And he will, in his time, in his way.

I believe this country and indeed the world is ripe and ready for an awakening, a revival, and I just could not see how this was possible with anyone but the republicans or John McCain in charge. But I don’t believe that now. If I can feel a new energy, a new urgency, and a new motivation, than perhaps others can as well.

I am listening to the Rich Mullins song, my deliverer is coming right now. This song always get to me…it’s my anthem I think. I always picture in my mind, Jesus, on a white horse, right arm outstretched sword in hard, horse up on it’s hind legs, ready to charge into battle. An army of angels and saints behind him, ready for the word to come and save us all. God is a just God, he filled with mercy, but also filled with justice, and he will rain both down on us.