Hope remains.
I’ve said it before – initially back in 2016, just after Trump was elected to the Presidency for the first time – and I’ll say it again – by reposting now, very lightly edited, what I wrote back then.
Because I continue to stand by what I said I believed nine years ago.
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“Nearly 3000 years ago King Uzziah died, and the future seemed uncertain for the people of Isaiah’s day. Isaiah, however, saw beyond the immediate political uncertainty.
‘In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and the train of his robe filled the temple.’ [Isaiah 6:1]
There is an image of one who is utterly in command. Uzziah may have died, but God was still on the throne and in absolute control.
As I believe he still is today.
Many are those who are longing for a leader who is wise enough, good enough, and powerful enough to bring about real positive change. And the good news is that there is such a ruler – for that is the type of ruler God is.
And just like many a politician, he too has made promises. Like the one where he says that a day is coming when he ‘will wipe away every tear from [our] eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things [will] have passed away.’ [Revelation 21:3-4]
Trump is currently promising to make everything great again, but this is a ludicrous claim – as it would be if it were made by any other politician too. Because the truth is that neither Trump, nor anyone else, is up to the job of delivering such a satisfactory outcome, no matter how earnestly they promise to do so.
Nobody, that is, except God – who through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ has already, not only demonstrated how deeply committed he is to keeping his word, but also proven his ample ability to do so.
So then, we can be sure that the promises God makes, are ones that he will surely keep.
Now I know that there will be some who ask how I can be so confident that God will deliver all that he has promised when there remains so much suffering in the world – some of which will have been experienced first hand by those who are reading this.
Well there is, of course, no easy answer to the problem of pain. Even so, I continue to trust in the God that I believe entered into our suffering so that he could redeem us from it by experiencing it himself. Which, though it might not be the way that we’d have gone about it, is nonetheless the only way that I could ever have been dealt with.
Because we are not God – and his thoughts are not your our thoughts, just as his ways are not our ways. [Isaiah 55:8]. Rather than any world leader, therefore, believing that God is wiser than me, I will continue to trust my future to the one who reliably promises me that ‘though weeping may tarry for the nighttime, joy will still come with the morning. [Psalm 30:5].
Some will have been foolish enough to believe that for the world to prosper, Trump had to be president, whilst others will have have been equally mistaken in believing that for everything to be OK, America had to be led by anyone other than him.
But the truth is that, when compared with God, no human being is that important, or that powerful, that it all depends on them.
So if you are dismayed by Trump, remember, in universal terms, he is just a leader of a local council in some unimportant backwater. This is not meant to suggest that politics and voting and pressing for change aren’t important, on the contrary we must continue to do all of these things, but putting our hope in people has always resulted in disappointment – and ultimately it always will.
So instead of hoping in weak men and women who cannot deliver what they claim to be able to, we need to hope in God, and bank on the fact that his promises are ones that he will most certainly keep.
And for all my atheist friends, please don’t think I’m referring to the god who is pulled out by those who want him to endorse their own questionable point of view. My God is not an American – neither he is not on their side or on the side of anyone else as a puppet deity bound to support whatever their proud and arrogant leaders want him to.
Not at all. Because he himself is the one who is sovereign. And he alone is in control.
Furthermore, my God is for those who know their weakness – he blesses the poor in spirit and comforts those who mourn. [Matthew 5:3].
My God will not break a bruised reed, nor will he quench a faintly burning wick. Rather he will faithfully bring forth justice. [Isaiah 42:3]
And my God is gentle and lowly in heart and gives rest to all those who labour and are heavy laden.[Matthew 11:28-29]
So then, we can be sure that the judge of all the earth will do what is just? [Genesis 28:25] And knowing that is what will enable me to sleep tonight despite all the uncertainties the world currently is facing, not to mention those that I am facing myself.
God can be trusted – and I commend him to you.”
Related posts:
To read ‘Grace in a political world’, click here
To read ‘If (POTUS)‘, click here
To read ‘A Bad Day at the Oval Office’, click here
To read ‘Hope or Despair’, click here
To read ‘Contending for the truth’, click here
Some musings 