The Highway Forums General Discussion Open Forum An appropriate prayer for the Election Season

What I am about to share made a major impact on me when I heard it earlier this week. Now, in my house, anything worth talking about is worth turning into a story, so let me tell you what happened:

Wednesday night our small, "reforming" church met, as always, in one of the homes of a covenant member--well, in the summer, in the backyard. As always, we had a time of worship, of sharing about the Lord's grace and goodness to us in the past week, of hearing updates about and praying for several supported missionaries, and then sharing of individual and corporate prayer requests.

As always, we then split into smaller groups--one in the living room and one in the dining room--so that more people could have opportunity to share requests and to pray. As always, there were people from toddlers to teens to Gramma R.--who remembers every detail of moving from Oklahoma to California during the Dust Bowl, but most of the time not where she is now; White, Spanish, Chinese, Black, Jewish--and a Hindu family, Bhutanese immigrants newly arrived from 17 years in a Nepalese refugee camp, who have found shelter in church homes and whose 3 children are now learning the Word of God in a Christian school (the father, Sri R., asked for prayer concerning a job interview today).

As always, one elder sat with each group. We have been blessed beyond words by 2 men who, after growing up in the standard evangelicalism of the 1950s Midwest, went on to sit at the feet of Francis Schaeffer at L'Abri for 3 months, where they both became resolved to retain a stranglehold on all the truth of the entire counsel of God, no matter the hardship this could cause with either a hostile culture or an apathetic evangelical community. They came to the South Bronx to start raising their families--18 children (10 birth, 8 adopted) between them by the time they finished--and found a tiny church--eventually to join the CCCC--at the very nadir of the decay of this once-thriving borough, reasoning that if they owned the Gospel of Jesus Christ to be true and powerful to save, it would be true and powerful to save here as well as anywhere else. They have eschewed church growth techniques with a passion, preferring covenantal faithfulness to large crowds looking for entertainment. They have also looked, and taught us by example to look, for opportunities to evangelise and catechise and disciple in all circumstances. (You'd think I love them dearly, and you'd be right).

Now the elders have their strong political convictions, which will emerge if you engage them privately; but they also fully grasp their roles in the two kingdoms, preaching and praying in accord with the eternal prophetic Word, as no respecters of parties or platforms or political personages, but rather speaking the truth and trusting the Lord to sovereignly work out his own glory and the good of his people through, among other means, the agency of human government.

So I was not at all surprised, but still deeply moved Wednesday night when, after others had offered prayers for guidance and wisdom in the election, Pastor J., head bowed over his own dining room table, simply prayed, I believe in full accord with the will of the Lord:

"Lord, please do not give us the leaders we deserve. Once again have mercy on us and give us better leaders than we deserve."

AMEN! I watched the debate last night, and what struck me was this: With all the talk about terrorists being our biggest threat and being concerned about what's right for other governments, there was one major thing missing. What about ourselves? What are we going to do? We have a whole bunch of repenting to do ourselves, and we need to get our own act together. Our biggest threat isn't terrorists- our biggest threat is ourselves.

For instance, I was struck by McCain's statement that "We cannot allow a second Holocaust." And the irony is that have allowed one- it's called abortion.

Good points, Marie. Let's pray that the wickedness of abortion become unavoidable in the remaining debates.

I fear that many current evangelicals who don't grasp the two kingdoms model can have a very hard time understanding what to do in "more difficult times" like ours--which are actually quite ordinary in the history of most of the world. Their proper desire to see evil behavior restrained by laws rooted in the eternal moral law can, in people not comfortable with the doctrine of original sin, lead to an expectation that mere legislation will reform a society. Their frustration with that situation can lead on one hand to a unfounded hope that a Christian magistrate will right all societal wrongs--witness the reaction of some to Mr. Huckabee last winter--or on the other hand to a disbelief that God can work through them in more mundane ways--witness the tendency of some to refuse to vote absent a sufficiently Christian candidate.

The proper response, I believe, is to say that God holds all nations in derision for their rampant unbelief in Christ, treating each nation with varying degrees of hardening or mercy as suits his eternal purposes to glorify himself and redeem and sanctify a people for himself from all nations, simultaneously revealing his wrath from heaven and sending the Gospel of Christ to be preached to the ends of the earth. Our lives as believers, then, must be wasted neither with working for a political salvation, nor with believing the world so lost that our calling as citizens is not used in his plans.

I think the abortion holocaust provides a good backdrop for this, with which we have wrestled much over the years. Back in the 1980s we discussed responses, knowing that direct vengeance would never be countenanced by God, and feeling that passive demonstration could be left to the conscience of the individual. Many participated in marches from time to time, several ran for local office; but as the 1990s passed we began to realize that a merely legislative solution, even if attainable, would not in itself turn the hearts of enough people to end the tragedy.

So we began doing the much harder work of directly teaching every child and teen and young adult who came our way, and every grown man stepping out of life on the street, if they didn't know already--and most didn't (we have many children under the teaching of the church who are themselves not covenant children)--and reminding those who knew, about the holiness of God and his purposes for human life, cutting through all the spirits of the age, and letting them see what a holy life was supposed to look like. They could see first hand how R.--mentally slowed from birth by FAS--and our own C.--born blind--and J. and L.--born with severe physical disabilities, were loved and respected by virtue of having been formed by and in the image of God, and how each contributed to the fellowship of faith.

And so although we grieve inwardly to hear of some who have gone on and broken the 7th commandment, we still rejoice with those who return to thank us for teaching them, when young, not to compound that sin by breaking the 6th as well. The teen girls' Pacesetters group, led by young women of the church and with members mostly from outside the church, last year for the first time was able to welcome back a former member, who asked if she could bring her newborn to the meetings so she could learn more of the Lord.