Yes, I know; I went there. I said the "L" word and possibly invoked a curse on us all. The Democrats seem to be in a tailspin of disarray and despair, and I am reading about how they have given up and are now merely hoping to save the Senate and win back the House. Biden seems to be sending signals that he might be willing to step down under the right conditions.
I don't buy it. The rank and file may be down in the mouth, but someone, somewhere, is working on a plan to salvage the election. It may be through manipulating traditional and social media. It may be through some sort of electoral chicanery. It may be a combination of both. It's probably both.
If that happens, things will take an Orwellian turn. There will be some serious "Ministry of Truth" vibes. The focus will be entirely on Candidate X. He or she will be the candidate and will have always been the candidate. The Biden era will evaporate, and progressives will say, "Who is this Biden of whom you speak?"
My point is that the Democrats are down, but they are by no means out. So what happens if they win in November? How do we process another Democratic term, which will likely be even more devastating and aggressive than that of the current administration?
Republicans are riding high right now. Since Saturday, it has been a week of signs and wonders. And it all started when Donald Trump stood up on the stage in Pennsylvania, his face bloodied and his fist raised in defiance. Immediately, word spread that God Himself had stepped in to protect Trump from the assassin's bullet.
It is tempting to think that it was an act of God, who has a plan for Donald Trump and has placed a special anointing on him. I have even heard that the assassination attempt was a part of God's plan to help ensure a Trump victory in November.
But what about Corey Comperatore, a loving and devoted husband, father, and public servant? Was it God's plan for him to die?
For every person who is saved from cancer by the power of prayer, there are thousands for whom those prayers are never answered. When we were in Cambodia, I witnessed more than the horrific effects of human trafficking. We visited some of the Killing Fields, and in some places, the photos of the victims are on display. The people in the pictures glare at the viewer from the not-so-distant past as they wait for death. At some such shrines, the skulls and the bones of the victims are preserved alongside the photos.
We visited "Woman's Island," which was inhabited primarily by women and children for years. We saw a tree on the island that has since been felled. It leaned over precariously to one side. During the reign of Pol Pot, Khmer Rouge soldiers would take infants by the feet and beat them against the tree until they died while their mothers looked on in terror and anguish.
In cities like Siem Reap and Phnom Penh, there are street performers who gather to play music. The band members are made up of men missing arms, legs, and sometimes portions of their faces. War ravaged Cambodia for years, and armies used land mines during combat. Now and then, people accidentally find those landmines and pay a horrible price. These men had done just that. Unable to find work, they began forming bands and playing on the streets for tips.
While in the country, we met a girl who had been sold into slavery as a tiny child. She was too small to work, so her captors opted to inject her with a substance that destroyed her neuromuscular functions. Then they put her on the street with a blanket and a jar to beg. Unable to speak and barely able to move, she was confined to a wheelchair. She died in that wheelchair in her early teens.
Were any of these people living out God's wonderful plan for their lives? I cannot accept that. I do not believe that God's wonderful plan includes the murder, dismemberment, and exploitation of the innocent. Believe what you will, but I reject all arguments to the contrary as sophistry. We live in a world of victimizers and victims. It has been that way since our earliest ancestors discovered the negotiating power of violence.
So if Trump does not win in November, does that mean that a miracle didn't save him? Does it mean that God did not have a wonderful plan for his life? Will we decide that it was all for naught and that we lied to ourselves the entire time?
If we are honest, our history, on macro and micro/personal levels, is filled with moments in which God did not "show up and show off," as one preacher I used to know was fond of saying. The bad guys win. The innocent die. Justice is not served. The cancer is not cured. Could it be that in those times, God's plan for us is that we remain faithful and take the ashes that we have been given and use them to mix the mortar of the future?
Andrew Fowler has an excellent article on RealClearReligion that discusses the idea of the hand of Providence on George Washington and Trump. Fowler notes that during his military career, Washington miraculously escaped death on several occasions in which his demise should have practically been a foregone conclusion. Reflecting on one such incident during the Battle of the Monongahela in 1755, Washington wrote, "The miraculous care of Providence…protected me beyond all human expectations." Washington understood that if God had spared him from death, he would be obligated to serve faithfully and honorably. What mattered was not that Washington survived musket shots and cannonballs. What mattered was the life Washington lived in light of those incidents.
When we were in Cambodia, I met a man my age who ran one of the safe houses for the rescued girls. This man had lived through all the horrors of the conflicts in that country. He had cowered in fear as the U.S. Air Force bombed his village. He had labored in one of Pol Pot's camps, scooping up human excrement from the outhouses with his bare hands and using it to fertilize the rice fields. He had evaded the gangs conscripting young men into the armies. He had lost members of his family. God did not spare him any of the pain or the horror of war. While he had every right to live in a constant state of resentment, he chose instead to take his pain and use it to form the basis of a ministry to rescue others.
During my junior year in college, my father died. Long-time readers know that I had a troubled relationship with him. But he was still my father. I loved him, and his death was a loss and a shock despite his shortcomings. When I got home, his body had already been cremated, and the first thing my mother did was give me a valium. That was a critical moment since the imparted lesson was that one could medicate one's pain away.
I took that lesson with me back to school and proceeded to "medicate" myself into a suspension since I became more interested in partying than in my studies. Grief is easier when you are drunk or high. The following January, I found myself back at my old job stacking lumber and driving trucks in the sub-zero Ohio winter. In retrospect, it was the best thing that could have happened to me.
Flash-forward about three years. I had gotten my act together, graduated, and was a chaplain intern at St. Mark's Hospital in Salt Lake City. I was paged in one evening because a patient was dying. I had been talking off and on with the family during his stay.
When I got to the hospital, the family was gathered around the elderly now-deceased man. They were talking to him, singing to him, holding his hand, and stroking his hair. It was a beautiful death. We should all die that way. I realized the family was fine and didn't need me. However, the man's teenage daughter was sitting alone in the common area, looking shell-shocked.
As I passed by the nurses' station, I heard someone say that they were going to give the girl a valium. I immediately flashed back to my own past. The substance abuse, the inability to cope, the suspension, my whole future hanging in the balance. And it all started with a valium. I suddenly found myself nose-to-nose with the nurse.
"You are NOT giving that kid a valium."
"The mother requested it."
"I don't care what the mother requested. You give that girl a valium, and you could be setting her up to think that pills and booze hold the answer to all of life's problems. Do not give that kid a valium."
This exchange went on for a few minutes. She finally relented but told me that she would contact the supervising chaplain. She did, and lo and behold, the man had my back.
I found the kid and sat down with her.
"My daddy died, Lincoln."
"I know."
"I don't know what's gonna happen next."
"I can't tell you what will happen to you, but I can tell you what happened to me when my dad died."
"Your dad died, too?"
"Yes, just a few years ago."
We talked for about 45 minutes before her mother came for her. I don't know what became of her, but I did the best I could with the tools I had acquired. God did not spare my father, and He did not spare me the experience of dealing with death improperly. But in being ultimately faithful to Him, I used that experience for His purposes when the time came.
Did God spare Donald Trump? Did He swat that bullet away the way you would swat away a fly on a steamy July afternoon? Maybe. It's also possible that it was all a matter of chance and physics, and God had no more stake in sparing Trump than He did in having another person die.
God does not always intervene when we think He should. The Democrats may successfully plot, plan, and finesse their way into victory in November. If that happens, the media will crow, and the denizens of X will rejoice in the nastiest ways possible. And we will be very nervous about the future.
But consider what has happened not just in the last week but in the last four years. How many eyes have had the scales fall from them? How many people have had epiphanies not just about the progressive movement but about a bloated government, disingenuous media, and the culture of lies and manipulation that has become part and parcel of American life? How many seeds have been planted? What tools have we been given for the future? It may not be a question of waiting to see what God will do when God may be waiting to see what we will do.
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