Scripture reading: Psalm 33:1–22

The Big If

A Meditation on II Chronicles 7:14

O Lord, it’s election time again. Though I’ve voted many times before, this time it feels different. Our nation is teetering on the brink of a great abyss. Which way will we go? Like most decisions we make in a fallen world, this one will be a mixture of good and bad, right and wrong. How to decide? WWJD? Maybe I should just stay home. But not to choose is itself a choice, and a cowardly one at that! But how can one vote make a difference? Big doors swing on tiny hinges. So, Lord, this month I will dutifully go to my polling booth and pull the lever. And you will be there in the booth, watching. History will be there, judging.

As I prepare to vote, Lord, the words you once spoke to a wise man (Solomon) who once ruled a great nation (Israel), keep rumbling through my soul. These words help me put voting in its proper context: If my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land (II Chronicles 7:14).

If my people. It’s not really about Democrats or Republicans is it, Lord? It is not the people in the White House but the people in Your House that control our destiny! Your people, Lord, they (we!) hold the key to the future, and that reality transcends all political debate forever!

Humble themselves. What pompous little idiots we are, Lord. We think we are rich, prosperous, and in need of nothing, and fail to realize how “wretched, pitiable, poor, blind and naked” we really are (Revelation 3:17). Help us to humble ourselves before you find it necessary to humiliate us.

And pray. Lord, we love to talk and theologize about prayer and, occasionally, we even say prayers. But seldom are we on our knees, desperate for you to rend the heavens and come down. Have mercy, Lord, on our hearts of stone. Teach us to pray.

And seek my face. When I do pray, Lord, it is not your face I seek, but your hand. I want you to do something, give something, or stop something. I want some thing, not some One, the gifts more than the Giver, your presents more than your Presence. What’s wrong with me?

And turn from their wicked ways. I am so quick to confess the sins of Hollywood, Las Vegas, Harvard and Washington and so slow to recognize the evil lurking in my own heart. Help me, Lord, to see and abhor the dwelling-in-me sin. Give me the gift of repentance.

You will hear, forgive, and heal our land. Is this really how it works, Lord? If we just meet these conditions, then you will heal our land? When I look around me, I am tempted to give up in cynicism and despair. So Lord, fill me with confidence in your power to revive, renew and restore. This is the victory that overcomes the world, even our faith (I John 5:4). I think I’m getting it, Lord. The biggest word in this prayer is the first one: if. While I have been waiting for you to move, now I am beginning to realize that you have been waiting for me!

 

I am not afraid that the people called Methodists should ever cease to exist either in Europe or America.

But I am afraid lest they should only exist as a dead sect, having the form of religion

without the power. And this undoubtedly will be the case unless they hold fast

both the doctrine, spirit, and discipline with which they first set out.  —john Wesley

 

point to ponder • The future of our nation is determined in our prayer rooms, not our voting booths.

prayer focus • Revival in the church.