Monday, January 11, 2021
Save me, O God, for the floodwaters are up to my neck. Deeper and deeper I sink into the mire; I can’t find a foothold. I am in deep water, and the floods overwhelm me. I am exhausted from crying for help; my throat is parched. My eyes are swollen with weeping, waiting for my God to help me…. O God, you know how foolish I am; my sins cannot be hidden from you. Psalm 69:1-5
The pathos of a king, despised by the masses,
headed for ruin, and drained of all emotional and spiritual strength, pleading
to the silent heavens for relief, is heart-shredding. This was David, the king of Israel, loved by
God, lauded by the people, and ultimately fallen from the heights of splendor.
When a ruler falls it is more than just a brief
news cycle; when a king falls, historians realize their job security has risen. In David’s case the fall was a personal
misstep, a poor choice which allowed his humanity to replace God’s will as his
governor. David’s prayer (O God, you know how foolish I am…) claims
his personal responsibility for the depths to which his relationship with God
has fallen. To his credit David does not
blame God or anyone else; he accepts the full weight of his sin.
Yet, there is something of a glimmer to which we
can turn our attention. It is the hope
of course-correction over total disintegration.
President Thomas Jefferson was in favor of revolution as a perpetual
cleansing agent for our experiment in self-governance. To be certain, Jefferson did not advocate bloody
revolution, rather he favored a revolution of ideas over legislative paper
piles. Rather than build storehouses of
legal ropes with which we bind ourselves to King David’s malaise of unanswered
prayers, an entanglement of rules that overburden a society, our third
president favored letting freedom ring, starting over with nothing but
fresh-faced commitment to liberty.
It is difficult to keep a noble dream alive, let
alone a dishonorable desire. It is not
for me to theorize on whatever drove Mr. Trump’s imagination and energy towards
the presidency and induced such fanatic allegiance by his “base” of political
support. I’m not qualified to explore
that rabbit hole. But, of the resultant
unravelling of the 45th president’s leadership, I surmise much will
be written and debated in the coming years.
Of this I’m certain, it will not be pretty or
flattering!
But I do offer one hopeful perspective; this
quadrennial experience of the brass-ring to be grasped, a door opened to the
Oval Office, and, unquestionably the most powerful seat on earth, is neither
for the faint of heart, nor for those with a short supply of character. Neither is it a place for personal
aggrandizement. It is a place for those
who would remember King David’s confession, O God, you know how foolish I
am…. It is playing out in a very
public, and excruciatingly painful manner, that the American public will not
abide those who can’t – or won’t – pray that way.
One last thought; I take no pleasure in having
written these words. Only God and time
will reveal whether they are true or not.
If my assessment here is true, it is a sad truth of the grounding of
reality. If untrue, time will blow away
these words like an errant king’s dalliance.
For You Today
Pray for the new president to be inaugurated; #46 has a tough act to
follow.
[1] Title Image: Courtesy of Pixabay.com Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation©
For other posts on this text see When Your Choice is the Lesser of
Evils
and Whom Do You Trust?
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