Being a political family, the results of the recent election threw me for a spin. Leading up to election day, everything seemed to point towards a new government—but not the government we ended up with. It was an election that was supposed to restore our freedoms. Freedom from mandates, freedom from segregation, freedom for professionals and skilled workers to step back into their careers, freedom towards a better future, freedom to make medical decisions for our own bodies, freedom to live our lives without the oppression of coordinated efforts to install a globalgovernance over us. According to the Bible, a one world government will come, but the hope was—that our people would not choose it just yet.
The result of the election brought all of the above, but without the freedom, without the reinstated employment, without the better future. From my perspective, and that of our family, we have spent over a decade participating in elections out of obedience to God in order to present an alternate opportunity of righteousness in government—God’s will on earth as it is in heaven.God always sends a warning before He allows wrath as we see time and time again in the Bible.
The struggle and the revelation
Following the election, I must admit I struggled. I struggled to understand why it didn’t turn out the way I’d hoped it would. It made so much sense in my mind that while God’s people are still on this earth pre-rapture, that the power of God in His people would push back the inevitable for a bit longer in order to give people more time to come to Him and therefore be saved before it is too late. This is still so, it’s just not as simple as I thought.
After allowing me to wrestle with my thoughts and disappointments for a week, God spoke to me through His Word in no uncertain terms. Firstly, He showed me my place with Him, safe and protected in the arms of Jesus (Genesis chapter 7 verse 1).
Secondly, He spoke back to me the exact emotions I had been feeling through the words of Job (chapter 6 verse 20, chapter 7 verse 11).This showed me just how close and intimate He is with me that He should know me so well, and that He was okay with my wrestling.
Thirdly, He showed me how angry injustice makes Him too, and that He was now going to lift that burden from our shoulders and put that garment on Himself (Isaiah chapter 59 verses 15-19). This was now ours to let go of, and His to take from us, as He steps into the next phase of revealing His glory and power to the world. It was always His to begin with, but He calls people to carry mantles and missions.
Lastly, He showed me that throughout it all, His Spirit will never leave us, nor will His words leave our mouths or that of our children and descendants forever (Isaiah chapter 59 verses 20-21).
Not slow in keeping His promises
We serve an amazing God, and although things around us may seem dire at times, God uses the fire of refining to bringattention back to His greatness. When all else is sinking sand, on Christ the solid rock I’ll stand. And when we have done all that we can do we are commanded to then just STAND.
“Therefore, put on the full armour of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand.” (Ephesians chapter 6 verse 13)
God is not slow in keeping His promises. As 2 Peter chapter 3 verse 9 tells us, He is just waiting to give as much time as possible for as many as who will, to be saved, as He doesn’t want anyone to perish. For His compassion is great.
The very last verse of Jonah shows His character very well. When the results didn’t work out for Jonah the way he wanted, God showed him that just as Jonah was concerned for the plant that had grown up to give him shelter and then died, should not God “have concern for the great city of Nineveh, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who cannot tell their right hand from left…?” (Jonah chapter 4 verse 11)
So even if people don’t know their lefthand from their right, God will continue to have compassion for them, and sometimes His compassion will take us with them through tough times. But as God’s love reveals, it’s these tough times that will ultimately bring the lost back to Him—if they so choose life.