Obama: Peril or Purpose?
So often lately I am taken aback when I hear people, including Christians, up on a soapbox lashing out at President Obama or the government in general. You'd think from the fury spewing out of their mouths that they had just found out the president was a Nazi or that the whole world was ending tomorrow.
I hear people raging daily on CNN, in a grocery store line, or in the break room at work. I hear people mad about the prospect of Obama's health care reform, or that the wealthy will have to pay more taxes, or that Americans will be able to travel to Cuba again.
And the question I have to ask, mainly to Christians, is "What is the worst that could happen?"
When everyone's words fade and I really hear these people's voices what I hear is simply fear.
How did we come to believe that Obama "snuck in" right under God's nose? Somehow we decided that God must have fallen asleep while our supreme government took a nosedive and threw our world into a free fall without His knowing.
And again I ask, "What is the worst that could happen?"
Sometimes when I'm contemplating things from my personal perspective I like to try to look at a slightly bigger picture- a perspective so big that it encompasses my country, the world, and even the entire universe?
After all, isn't that what God sees?
Suppose Barack Obama's medical reform doesn't pan out as wonderfully as we'd like, or maybe allowing travel to Cuba turns out to not be such a great idea.
What if at the very worst our economy never picked itself up and brushed itself off?
What if instead we were faced with the loss of what we always saw as a secure, strong, and even indestructible world force? What if we had to live like most other impoverished countries? What if we lost all of the material things that we are used to having and just had to live simply?
I can imagine a lot of chaos would ensue if this were to happen.
Perhaps there would be looting and vandalism as people tried to survive. Maybe there would be more violence or debauchery or profanity than before.
What if all that happened?
But what if in the midst of that great devastation our souls became concerned again with what really matters and we learned to suffer, yes suffer, in this life?
And what if because of all of this we began to seek God and turn from the foolishness of materialism and relativism and 100% unadulterated greed?
We can even try to look at the situation from a whole other angle: What if God in all of His sovereignty was using Barack Obama to begin a process of healing in our country from all of the racial injustice of the past?
How is it that we dare to think for one second that the current state of our country, our WORLD, is at odds with God's purposes?
6 For to us a child is born,
to us a son is given,
and the government will be on his shoulders.
And he will be called
Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
7 Of the increase of his government and peace
there will be no end.
He will reign on David's throne
and over his kingdom,
establishing and upholding it
with justice and righteousness
from that time on and forever.
The zeal of the LORD Almighty
will accomplish this.
- Isaiah 9:6-7
Jennifer Newton Martin is a Microbiologist and freelance writer in Richmond, VA who attends Commonwealth Chapel and can write a novel but not a one-liner.
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