Proverbs Reflects on Value of Elections
One election down – local – run off elections and state and national elections to go – and already I am hearing the cry of foreboding about what lies ahead.
Some of those cries have come from my own mouth.
THEY will mess it up even worse.
THEY will keep making the same mistakes.
THEY don’t really care.
THEY are just in it for the paycheck.
The king’s heart is in the hand of the Lord, as the rivers of water: He turns it wherever He will.” Proverbs 21:1 (KJV)
I have read this proclamation every month for the last seven years and I have made this proclamation on more than one occasion in the last seven months.
And yet, I struggle to let what I know settle into my heart – like so many promises that have been given to me.
It matters little who settles into the thrown. The control THEY receive is a delusion – it always has been.
I have only one thing that I need to be concerned about – and when I get that right then the rest of it will begin to adjust around me. In the second verse of Proverbs 21, I am told that the Lord is pondering my heart.
Proverbs Reminds Me of God’s Focus
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The Lord is not looking at my plans.
The Lord is not looking at the vote tally.
The Lord is not looking at the turn out.
The Lord is not even looking at the party.
The Lord is looking at the heart – at MY HEART.
I don’t have to like, or approve, or even understand the way the votes are cast. I don’t have to appreciate the significance of the outcome.
If I make the choice to get my heart in the right place – truly and completely focused on God – THEN I affect and infect my world – not with a vote but with the living of my life.
It makes no sense – not to the standards that we have been taught are ordinary – but it makes all the difference in the world.
Change the heart and I change my world.
Joseph was thrown into a pit, sold into slavery, falsely accused and thrown into jail, AND then placed in the second most powerful position in the country – not because he voted right or talked right but because he had his heart right.
Nehemiah was in slavery, working for the king while Jerusalem sat in ruins when the king gave Nehemiah the authority and the resources to go and rebuild the city – not because he spoke right to the king or he asked right of the king but because Nehemiah had his heart right with God.
God told Jeremiah that he could find Him – not if he got the right education; not if he went to the right seminary; not if he followed the right political party – but “you will seeks me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.” (Jeremiah 29:13)
I know that this world is crazy, but the truth is the world has ALWAYS been crazy. It is time for me to stop falling into the trap of delusions crafted so well that the world believes its own delusions.
It is a heart issue – nothing bigger and nothing smaller – and when I commit and follow through on that heart issue then it will happen.
Be blessed,
