Bracing for The Elections

This article is the first blog post on our new website! We’ve called it ‘The Inkwell’ and you can find it on the top menu at www.friendshipelca.com. We’re finally come into the 21st Century! We’ve optimized the website for mobile devices so you can read it easily on your phone. We’re working on an app but for now, this is a giant step forward. We continue to put important information (and a lot of people post really cool pictures) on our Facebook page, and we continue to resist the inevitable lure of Twitter. I am fifty one years old, and I’ve got to draw the line somewhere.

Well, 2016 is upon us, and the election cycle we’ve all been dreading is upon us. I’m going to get rid of my Directv ASAP. I’ve no desire to watch political ads, one after another, tell me how vile the Other One (used to be the ‘Other Guy’ but times change) is, or how the world will end if the Other One wins, and how “America As We Know It” will crash and burn. There’s no real way to escape it, but I can minimize the distortion!

That’s usually how the devil works in our world, isn’t it? Through distortion, in the shouting, raging URGENCY of the world around us. Don’t get me wrong, God made the world, God called it all very good, and God SO LOVED the world he sent Jesus to SAVE IT! But that doesn’t mean the world, which is STILL BEING saved (as we might say, “almost, not yet, already”), doesn’t rebel and resist the Kingdom. And it will try to drag us, Soldiers of the Cross, vessels of grace, agents of the Kingdom, down with it. When we feel alone, isolated, empty of God, then we allow the shouting of the world to drown out the Word of God. That Word endures - God’s Word endures forever - but it DOESN’T drown out everything else. God’s voice is often the still small voice in the empty silence. God’s voice is calm, and generous, and gracious. But the world’s noise can drown that eternal gracious voice in a sea of cacophony, distortion and hype. Don’t let it happen! God commands us to pray, to fast, to meditate on God’s Word. God commands this not for God’s sake, but for OURS. So we can hear. So we can understand. So we can be free. Free of fear, mistrust, anger and hatred. Free to serve with clean conscience. Free to be ourselves - redeemed, joyous believers. So stop. Listen. Hear the Word. Understand. And overcome. We WILL overcome, in Jesus’ name!