Today’s Scripture Reading (March 11,
2016): Psalm 60
Donald Trump
says that he wants to “Make America Great Again.” Hillary Clinton has amended
that slogan to “Make America Whole Again.” Of course, both candidates make fun
of the other candidate’s slogan. Clinton insists that America has always been
great, and it still is great. But what America is, is divided. And the source
of the division, a least in the eyes of Clinton, is the Trump campaign. On the
other hand, Trump can’t understand how a nation with the national debt of the
United States and a nation that is bleeding jobs to Mexico and Asia like the
United States seems to be could be considered great. Ted Cruz simply says that “God isn’t finished with
America Yet.” That there is hope for the future for America. The best days of
the country are still in front of the people.
Who is
right? All of them. And it is not just an American problem. The finances of the
cultural west are in a mess. Jobs are leaving other nations as well as the
United States. We all seem to be divided and hurting. And we all need to find
the path to back to greatness, wholeness, and the future. The question really
is how?
And the
answer might be complicated. For some, this is path is simply by working the
right way. That is what every political campaign seeks to promise us; that they
know the right way work for our nations. Others will argue that the path is totally
dependent on God. If a nation wants to be great, whole and in the possession of
a future, then the path is one that will carry us toward God.
And on the
surface, it would seem that David argues for the latter. But having said that,
what we know about David is that he was a king of action. He was not content to
wait around and let God do it. David did the action, but he attributed the
success to God indicating that his action was in the direction of God. And it
was God that won the victory. Somebody said, and it has been attributed to
people from St. Ignatius (1491-1556) back to St. Augustine (354-430) with many
people in between, that we should “pray as though everything depended on God. Work as though
everything depended on you.” Some have argued that this is a hypocritical
stance; that it has to be either us or God. But I disagree. What we need as
Christians is courageous action in the direction of God. But action must be
toward God because ultimately it is about
what God is doing, and not about what we are doing. Charles Spurgeon wrote, "divine working is not an argument
for human inaction, but rather it is the best excitement for courageous
effort." Like David, I want to move wherever it is that God is moving. But
we need to be willing to move instead of standing on the sideline. That is
exactly what I think David was doing, moving in the direction of God. And
because of that, David was successful – and he gave the credit to God. And that
gave the nation of Israel
a future.
Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Psalm
15 & 16
Personal Note: Happy Birthday, Dad.
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