By Linda Nelson
I am a black woman who doesn’t hate President Trump. Don’t get me wrong, I am perplexed and many times dismayed by the comments and actions that bring into question his intentions and character, but the reality is that despite all odds, Donald Trump now sits in the White House as President of the United States.
In many ways his presidency is a reflection of who we are, either because we are like minded and have come into agreement with his philosophies and the way he views America, or because we enjoy the show that is often accompanied by the behaviors we crave, and finally because some of us just want to be left alone and have therefore left open those places that we should be occupying, but instead have been filled by someone else.
Whatever the reasons, there is in fact a much bigger force at work here and despite the bravado and arrogance that Trump displays on television, in the newspapers and on his Twitter feed, he is fallible and prone to the same weaknesses and defeats as we all are. Alone, he is unable to encompass the enormity of the White House, and the office he now holds.
As a Christian, I pray that Trump realizes his own limitations and begins to recognize, and rely on the unending capacities of God. But after I have cast my vote and lent my voice, and bent my knees in prayer to the Most High God, in the end I have to trust that the God that I serve is sovereign, forgiving and compassionate to mankind and all of our shortcomings. I have to know within myself that only God knows how our days will end up and that in this landscape of uncertainty, He knows the places that we were created to fill.
King Solomon was one of the wisest men known to Israel. The bible says his riches were vaster than any. Yet King Solomon knew how fallible he was as a man. He writes about his revelation of man’s propensity to believe that we are the generation that has initiated a new thing and therefore are different and more advanced than those who have been before.
He reminds us that there is no such thing as a new thing- it is only new to us (Ecclesiastes 1:9). Throughout the ages our surroundings may appear different, but they have always existed in seed form, waiting for those of us whom God has purposed to cultivate them, to come into our rightful places (Genesis 2:5).
And in Ecclesiastes, King Solomon holds the mirror before us and our continuous state of self-love, self-admiration and self-absorption.
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Everything is boring and no one can find meaning in it. Boring to the eye- boring to the ear. What was will happen again. There is nothing new on this earth. Year after year it is the same old thing. Does someone call out, ‘Hey this is new’? Don’t get excited- it’s the same old story. [He says] I made myself great. I built myself houses and planted vineyards. I gathered for myself silver and gold and the special treasures of kings. So I became great and excelled more than all who were before me in Jerusalem. Whatever my eyes desired I did not keep from them, and I did not withhold my heart from pleasure.Then I looked on all the works that my hands had done and on the labor in which I had toiled and indeed it was all vanity and grasping for wind. There was no profit under the sun." (Ecclesiastes 1-2)
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But the good news is that when we acknowledge that God’s way is the way, and then align ourselves to His purpose and intent, then unity, peace and victory will come.
Trump will be president for a little while, but God is God forever. So let us do what we were created to do, because when we do what we can do, then God will do what only He can do. So let us come into agreement with God’s plan and His intentions. And let us begin to think like He thinks, and to speak what we hear the Spirit speaking. And then let us turn and bring everything around us into order through the gifts, talents and abilities that God has placed in us for such a time as this. Walk it out!
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Awesome Linda! I will be sharing!
Thanks Lisa!