Tag: prayer

Prediction vs. Prayer: Christian Responsibility in the Presidential Election

by Heath Lambert

During this election cycle just reading the headlines will make you lose your mind.  A short week and a half ago, headlines warned: Romney is Running out of Choices and Time, Romney Desperate in Search of Votes, It’s Over—President Obama Will Be Reelected.  One debate later the headlines are very different, even opposite: Romney Opens Cracks in Obama’s Firewall, Obama’s Aides Plot Comeback, Obama’s Dilemma—How to Reset the Race.

I get it.  This is high-stakes political theater.  A lot of people are paying attention and everyone would like to be the person who correctly guesses the outcome of the election.  The operative word, however, is guess.  Nobody knows what is going to happen on November 6th.  As Christians we know that God alone knows the future.  The prophet Isaiah links God’s glory with his ability to declare the future when he says,

I am the Lord; that is my name; my glory I give to no other, nor my praise to carved idols. Behold, the former things have come to pass, and new things I now declare; before they spring forth I tell you of them. (Isaiah 42:8-9)

God will not give his glory of authoritatively declaring the future to another.  God enjoys displaying his glory in being the only one who knows for sure what happens next.

That is why the story of presidential elections (and everything else for that matter) is the story of surprises.  There are surprises in every presidential election in the last century.  Sometimes those surprises are huge in magnitude (President Truman’s defeat of Thomas Dewey in 1948).  Sometimes those surprises are of a smaller sort (Al Gore lost his home state of Tennessee to George W. Bush in 2000).  The same will hold true this year.  There is a vice-presidential debate tonight, and then two more presidential debates in the weeks to follow.  The election narrative will reset after each of those events.  Then, when we wake up on November 7th, all of us will be puzzling over different things.

That means Christians should not waste their time playing the pagan game of guessing the future when it comes to elections.  Instead of guessing Christians should be using their time doing three much more important things: praying, pondering, and persuading.

First, we have a command that we are to pray for “Kings and all who are in high positions” (1 Tim 2:2).  That means we should be praying for Mitt Romney and Barack Obama.  One of them will be our president for the next four years and they need grace to be wise, strong, and full of integrity.  Instead of guessing about the election we should be praying for it.

Second, we need to ponder the many different issues at stake in this election.  There is no shortage of crucial issues to consider—abortion, tax policy, religious liberty, international affairs, and many others. Some Christians think we shouldn’t vote because Romney is a Mormon or because the candidates are not that different.  Many Believers think that Romney should be elected because he is the best to defend the moral issues Christians care about.  Some argue Obama would be a better defender on social justice issues.  The point is that all these things are worth pondering.  Thinking about such matters (and praying for them) is infinitely more profitable then chewing your nails trying to figure out what will happen on election day.

Finally, after we have prayed about the issues, and pondered them, we need to try and persuade others.  As Christians we should use our conversations, tweets, blogs, and news stories to contend for the candidate we believe is the most suitable to hold an office as significant as president of the United States.  For my money, Christians will make an egregious error if they abstain from voting or vote for any candidate who is openly in favor of killing innocent human beings.

I’m sure there are some who are offended by that  or who disagree with me.  That’s fine. Let’s talk about it.  That is a conversation that will matter.

When we have it at least we won’t be wasting one-another’s time playing
God and hazarding guesses.

Heath Lambert is the Executive Director Elect of the National Association of Nouthetic Counselors and the assistant Professor of Biblical Counseling at Boyce College; He is also the author of Biblical Counseling After Adams and co-author of Counseling the Hard Cases.

What the Demons Taught Me (part 1)

C.S. Lewis’ The Screwtape Letters has functioned in my life as a mirror to my soul.  So many times upon picking up the book I have had “Ah ha!” moments in which I discover a new insight on how spiritual warfare plays into my daily living – areas in which seem to me to be so “unspiritual”  I hope some of these lessons will encourage you as you follow Christ today.

1.)  Don’t Seek Feelings, Seek the Lord

While advising Wormwood on how to keep his man from praying, Screwtape says, “Teach them to estimate the value of each prayer by their success in producing the desired feeling…” (17).  The fountain of my spiritual feelings ebbs and flows.  To base the effectiveness or the frequency of my prayers on these feelings is detrimental to praying with confidence that God hears me.  We ought to seek the Lord’s face in prayer, and not some ideal fleeting feeling that will not always console us.  Pray through the night, even if it seems you are praying to an empty sky.

2.)  Even When You Are Doubting God, Obey  Him

This is perhaps one of the most famous quotes out of The Screwtape Letters, and hangs on many refrigerators wherever the book is cherished.  Screwtape warns Wormwood that, “Our cause is never more in danger than when a human, no longer desiring, but still intending, to do our Enemy’s will, looks round upon a universe from which every trace of Him seems to have vanished, and asks why he has been forsaken, and still obeys” (40).  Obedience is the medicine of the soul who is sick.  Disobedience in times of doubting and spiritual dryness is one of Satan’s great weapons to keep the Christian in the feedback loop of despair and away from our Father’s best.  Even when you feel like doing nothing, be obedient.  Trust your Father.

3.)  Don’t Dress Up Your Sin In Humor

Screwtape counsels Wormwood that, “A thousand bawdy, or even blasphemous, jokes do not help towards a man’s damnation so much as his discovery that almost anything he wants to do can be done, not only without the disapproval but with the admiration of his fellows, if only it can get itself treated as a Joke” (56).  The weightiness of sin becomes as light as a feather when laughed about for long enough.  If I find my sin becomes a joke, my sin may become reality.  Sin should be dealt with in tears and repentance, not laughter and and hand waving.