Grief and Disillusionment Bring New Hope

Image via WikipediaOk, I'll admit it. I'm grieving.

I know that no human being is our savior. A different election outcome would not have brought Heaven on Earth. My hope is not in politicians. My hope is in the Lord.

But I'm grieving.

Grief is appropriate for a devastating loss, for the death of a loved one. And for me, that's what this election represents.

But let me be very clear about this. I don't think America is in mortal danger because of the candidate who won. I believe the opposite.

I believe that the candidate won because America is in mortal danger. That's why I said that I grieve over what this election represents, not over what it did.

And frankly, if the other candidate had won, I would not feel much better.

If America had truly been a vital nation "Under God," not only would the outcome have been different, but we wouldn't even have been presented with the same candidates or the same issues. This election didn't so much change the country as it revealed it.

And so I grieve the death of a dream.

I know that the America I love is really an ideal, a dream, a hope. For many years, the America I love has not been the America that I live in. And more and more I'm having to admit that the ideal, the dream, the hope could never really be achieved by human beings. Democracy is the best human form of government, but it is still human, and so will still be brought down by the weight of its own sin. It can only work as the Founding Fathers dreamed IF it is a godly nation seeking to be led by godly leaders.

America hasn't been that for a long, long time. So November 4th, 2008 was inevitable. If it hadn't happened this year, it would have happened in 2012, or 2016. In fact, I suspect that in God's eyes, Election Day was a minor blip. He's been watching our moral and spiritual decay and our blatant rebellion growing worse and worse throughout our history.

If a gardener knows that the root system of a vine runs under his whole property, he won't be surprised to see any particular shoot pop out of the ground. Besides, our Gardener can't be surprised by anything. He removes kings and raises up kings (Dan. 2:21).

We are the ones who feel the shock, because we had hoped the roots wouldn't send up this particular sprout. We feel the threat of the power that this shoot wields. And we see the danger that it poses to America.

But if we look at any one individual as the greatest threat facing our nation, then we misunderstand the danger.

The danger is never in the sprouts. It's in the root.

Our nation made this choice, and made all of the previous choices which led up to this choice, because our nation desperately needs God and has rejected Him. And that, my friends, is what we need to grieve. Not the outcome of the election, or the man it will put in office, though there is a great deal of heartache that will no doubt follow those two things.

Let me say it again.

We are headed for a great deal of grief now that we've chosen this president. But the heartache will not be primarily the result of the election or of the new president. It will be the result of national apostasy, of which November 4th was only a symptom.

We should not be grieving as if yesterday marked a horrible defeat for a great nation. We should be grieving as those who recognize that our nation ceased to be great decades ago, and has been self-destructing for a long time. Let our prayers focus around our lost nation, pleading with God to grant us repentance from sin, and grant us true Spirit-led revival.

And by all means, let's be disillusioned.

"Disillusionment - noun - a freeing or a being freed from illusion." (Dictionary.com)

We, as God's people, are called to walk in truth, not in illusion. And faith in human government is faith in an illusion (Ps. 118:9, Ps. 146:3, Jer. 17:5-8.)

When God strips away illusions, He is doing us a great kindness. The process may be painful, because we tend to love the little dreams we've clung to. But the end result is something far better than any illusion could ever give.

The result is real hope. Not a false hope based on the supposed virtues of any politician or nation, but a true hope in our Heavenly King and our eternal home.

Php. 3:20 For our citizenship is in heaven, from which we also eagerly wait for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.

How often have we Americans read that, and said that? How often have we actually meant it? I fear that, for many of us, those have just been words, nothing more.

God is going to change that. When "Hate Crimes" laws are passed which get your pastor (and mine) thrown in prison for preaching the truth of God; when Obama fulfills his promise to sign our nation on with the Alliance of Civilizations, which among other things defines all who believe in absolute truth as "terrorists" and says parents who teach their children exclusive dogmas are guilty of child abuse, then we're all going to begin to long for our Heavenly home much more fervently.

But that's where our main allegiance should have been all along.

So I, for one, will grieve in my own way, but I will also have hope, for the truth of Php. 3:20 is becoming more real to me already. No one, NO ONE can corrupt that Heavenly city, and its King will never be deposed!

Praise God!