Tuesday, January 5, 2016
Give your love of justice to the king, O God,
and righteousness to the king’s son.
Help him judge your people in the right way; let the poor always be treated fairly.
May the mountains yield prosperity for all, and may the hills be fruitful.
Help him to defend the poor, to rescue the children of the needy,
and to crush their oppressors.
May they fear you as long as the sun shines, as long as the moon remains in the sky.
Yes, forever! Psalm 72:1-5(NLT)
and righteousness to the king’s son.
Help him judge your people in the right way; let the poor always be treated fairly.
May the mountains yield prosperity for all, and may the hills be fruitful.
Help him to defend the poor, to rescue the children of the needy,
and to crush their oppressors.
May they fear you as long as the sun shines, as long as the moon remains in the sky.
Yes, forever! Psalm 72:1-5(NLT)
Ok…so in case you haven’t noticed yet….it’s an
election year!
Lord, in your mercy!
When I read King David’s prayer this morning I
was struck by the humility that reaches not just to the halls of prosperity and
military might, but all the way to God’s heart.
David asks that his heart would be like God’s heart for the poor and
oppressed. David wants the bullies of
the earth to know the sting of God’s outrage towards those who crush the
powerless. He also asks for a heart
filled with “fairness” so that in judging the needs of people everything will
bend towards justice.
Have you ever wished for that kind of humility on
inauguration day, where all the political wrangling and rhetoric were cast aside,
and, after taking the oath of office, the new president just fell down on his
knees before God and man to proclaim what our “pledge of allegiance” states –
that we are one nation under
God?
I know; I know….tolerance, pluralism, political
correctness…blah, blah, blah….
Now, don’t misread me – I understand the
Biblical mandate to be people of restraint and respect; I just wish, for once,
we could find a way to put aside political interests, flag-waving, super PACS
and party lines to acknowledge that we are really nothing at all without God’s strong
hand.
Because without that acknowledgement in both
our national discourse and resolve to actually BE God’s hands
that feed the hungry and offer protection to the defenseless, we are just a caricature
of being a Godly nation!
I am not a political genius (or any other kind of
genius), so I don’t have a plan to reinvent the American justice system,
foreign policy, or even choose the china for state dinners.
But, perhaps like you, I am just awake enough to
recognize we need a revival of personal, Scriptural holiness to spread across
this land.
For You Today
Revival always starts in the heart; that means it’s
always my move – and yours!
And it spreads through prayer (and maybe even writing
your Congressional representative).
[1]
Title image:
(Gerald R. Ford Presidential Museum), via Wikimedia
Commons & Oren neu dag via Wikimedia
Commons, By Romero88 [CC0], via Wikimedia
Commons [all Public domain]
No comments:
Post a Comment