Psalm 2
Why this tumult among nations
among peoples this useless murmuring
The arise the kings of the earth
princes plot against the Lord and his Anointed
Come let us break their fetters
come let us cast off their yoke
He who sits in the heavens laughs
the Lord is laughing them to scorn
The he will speak in his anger
his rage will strike them with terror
It is I who have set up my king
on Zion my holy mountain
I will announce the decree of the Lord
The Lord said to me you are my Son
It is I who have begotten you this day
Ask and I shall bequeath you the nations
put the ends of the earth in your possession
With a rod of iron you will break them
shatter them like a potter's jar
Now O kings understand
take warning rulers of the earth
Serve the Lord with awe
and trembling pay him your homage
Lest he be angry and you perish
for suddenly his anger will blaze
Blessed are they who put their trust in God
Can we say that the nations are in tumult today? Or that there is useless murmuring among the people today? Without a doubt I believe that the answer is yes. We are in a presidential cycle once again and it seems like with each successive one the barbs fly faster and the truth is played looser and we all join in. Our candidate is the only one who will not send our nation to hell in a hand basket and the other candidate is the worst thing to come along since Hitler. The talking heads on the news stations have their say. The leaders of whatever subset have their say. And we too often fall in line as if we are lemmings quite ready to jump off the cliff is X tells us to.
The funny part is that some of those talking heads/leaders are pastors and they try to tell you what God wants, who God wants, what political party God is and is not behind, how a Christian should vote, what a Christian one issue should stand for and against. This is funny because it is not the job of a pastor to tell someone how to vote. And its funny because God probably is laughing at all of us.
Many many years ago the Israelites came to God and asked for a king and for awhile God told them no, because a king can grow to think that he is the ultimate authority and when the king is the ultimate authority the Almighty is not. For the next few weeks and then the next few months and years after and then for the rest of your life try to remember, whether you vote blue or red or green or libertarian [not sure what color they are], that the party and the politician are only so powerful and so right and so true, yet the God who set this all in motion is all powerful, all right, and all true.
+ How have you contributed to the 'useless murmuring? How can you help to end it?
+ Try to be civil when discussing politics, especially when in conversation with fellow Christians, you should ultimately be on the same side of things even if you are on different political aisles.
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