Dear Reader: What is your response to the results of the elections of 11/08/16?
Are you jumping up and down with excitement, or are you wailing and gnashing your teeth?
Do you fear that your life will be ruined, or are you breathing a sigh of relief?
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My response to all election results is based on what I read in the Tanakh (a.k.a. Old Testament). It tells me that God has unlimited abilities, unlimited authority and unlimited free will. Thus, God cannot be thwarted by any humans.
Sometimes, we feel as if God has been thwarted, because something unpleasant to us has happened, but the Tanakh teaches that God is still in control.
Sure, we feel frustrated whenever God permits something unpleasing, sad or tragic to happen.
Christian author Jerry Bridges comments on the reason for this frustration:
“As we watch tragic events unfolding, or more particularly as we experience adversity ourselves, we often are prone to ask God, ‘Why?’ The reason we ask is because we do not see any possible good to us or glory to God that can come from the particular adverse circumstances that have come upon us or our loved ones.”*
Our inability to come up with an answer to “Why?” is due to the fact that our way of thinking is not the same as God’s way of thinking.
Yeshayahu/Isaiah 55:8-9: “For My plans are not your plans, Nor are My ways your ways — declares the LORD. But as the heavens are high above the earth, So are My ways high above your ways And My plans above your plans.”
One might claim that God would never choose to permit anything bad to happen to his people. Such a claim, however, would contradict what the Tanakh says.
The Tanakh book of Bereishit/Genesis describes how Joseph was sold into slavery by his own brothers. What happened to Joseph was definitely unpleasant for him. Yet, it was a part of God’s larger plan that God had not yet revealed to Joseph. Later on, Joseph tells his brothers, “Now, do not be distressed or reproach yourselves because you sold me hither; it was to save life that God sent me ahead of you. . . God has sent me ahead of you to ensure your survival on earth, and to save your lives in an extraordinary deliverance. So, it was not you who sent me here, but God.”
From a human perspective, what Joseph’s brothers did to him was wrong. Yet, Joseph interpreted their action as being controlled by God. God had permitted a bad thing to happen for the purpose of the greater good.
One might claim that God has a hands-off policy when it comes to politicians, but that claim, too, contradicts the Tanakh. In Shemot/Exodus 4:21, God tells Moses, “When you return to Egypt, see that you perform before Pharaoh all the marvels that I have put within your power. I, however, will stiffen his heart so that he will not let the people go.”
Ezra 1:1 says, “… the LORD roused the spirit of King Cyrus of Persia …”
The God of the Tanakh has revealed that he will do things that defy the logic of the humans who worship him. For example, in Shemot/Exodus 4:11, God tells Moses, “Who gives man speech? Who makes him dumb or deaf, seeing or blind? Is it not I, the LORD?” In that verse, God says that it is he who makes mute people mute, deaf people deaf and blind people blind.
Do I understand why God would choose to makes mute people mute, deaf people deaf and blind people blind? No, I don’t. Yet, God makes those choices anyway. Somehow, those choice end up working for God’s glory, even I don’t understand how.
So, I am not panicking about any election results, because my faith is in the God who has unlimited abilities, unlimited authority and unlimited free will. I am confident that God will be glorified no matter what any elected official says or does, even if I do not understand how the things unpleasant to me fit into God’s grand scheme.
Besides, I am carrying a towel.
*Bridges, J. (1988). Trusting God Even When Life Hurts. Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress.
The “Wanted” posters say the following about David: “Wanted: A refugee from planet Melmac masquerading as a human. Loves cats. If seen, contact the Alien Task Force.”