Dear America,
At long last, our time of speculation about the next president and presidency is over. This election season served as a stark reminder that while we may be called the “United States,” we are, in fact, a very divided country. It’s time to heal and unite, but healing and unity are always byproducts of something else, a key ingredient so scarce in our all-consuming quest for self-gratification. Yes, the quest of our next president is over; now it’s time to focus on the King and His Kingdom. No president, no matter if elected by the popular or electoral vote, is a surrogate for the supernatural work that only the Almighty can perform.
Our nation is now in such a mess that it will take nothing short of a series of miracles to turn her around. Our country will be great again, and we’ll all be stronger together, when we rediscover the key ingredient for supernatural success. It’s where real hope and change begin – and how they are sustained. Our next president will need an enduring dose of divine wisdom and humble courage, because without these, our best days will truly be behind us.
Supernatural success is only possible when humble courage, which has been absent for far too long, becomes central to the mix. This would be true no matter who had been elected as our new Commander in Chief. Humble courage is the greatest need in our nation – because it is the greatest need in each of our lives, families and houses of worship. James 4:6 and 1 Peter 5:5 remind us that “God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.” I don’t know about you, but I can’t afford to be resisted by God any longer – and neither can our families, houses of worship or nation. We need a massive outpouring of humility, at a grass-roots level around the country, with you and me at ground zero.
America, we have work to do, and lots of it. But this work begins with a hard look at what we’ve become, and for many of us, we’ve become hypocrites. Our hypocrisy needs to go the way of the passenger pigeon, which once accounted for nearly 40 percent of the bird population in the U.S.. Similarly, hypocrisy among Christians accounts for a great number of sins throughout our nation. The plank in the eye of most who claim to be following Christ is so large and so culturally acceptable that it is amazing we are even able to see the specks in our neighbors’ eyes – upon which we seem so fixated. Our fixation is wrong, nonetheless. It’s time we heed the command of Jesus and start pointing the finger at ourselves. That’s where hope and change begin.
Is it a coincidence that America’s first nation-wide “bath,” the first-ever National Week of Repentance, took place during the entire week before the election? It was the first time in American history that people in all 50 states, Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico, took part in a simultaneous, week-long time of self-examination, asking God to do a mighty work – not merely “out there,” in the nebulous expanse we call “America,” but in the specific arenas of our personal lives, families and churches. I don’t think it was a coincidence at all. I think it was providential. Our nation needs a bath, a real and deep work of God in each of us, from the inside-out. That bath, I believe, has only just begun.
No president and no political party can do what only God can do. It’s time for genuine, historic movements of God to sweep across America, one person at a time. This is how America will change. This need is not for some distant time in the future, but now. If America is to be saved, the Church must accept her role as the healing balm of the Great Physician.
Never mind “America” for a moment. While many of us have pointed the finger at Mr. Trump and Mrs. Clinton for their character flaws, could it be that, through them, God has been trying to get our attention by reflecting back to us what many of us have become? It’s just like God to allow His people to have leaders just like themselves. If we want leaders of high moral character, we need to become followers who possess the same trait. Leaders, we must remember, arise from among the people.
Yes, Mr. Trump and Gov. Pence will undoubtedly face many hurdles as they make the transition to assume the presidency and vice-presidency of our nation. Mrs. Clinton and Gov. Kaine would have faced their own share of problems had they been elected. 1 Timothy 2:1-7 tells us we are to pray for our leaders, no matter who they are, that God’s agenda be advanced. But in our praying for our leaders, let’s not forget that they are a lot like most of us. It is this sobering realization that helps me realize that the American Church’s need for a bath, real revival and serious spiritual awakening, has never been more pressing. We have a need for a deep, cleansing work of God in our nation, and that cleansing needs to include each of us, right now.