We are slowly getting over the shock of the U.S. election upset. Even Trump did not expect to win; those who voted for him, who were largely flying under the polling radar because the liberal media had prematurely made Trump-support politically incorrect, could not believe the result either.
A lot of political analysis will take place in the next few weeks as a nonplussed nation tries to come to terms with its general disbelief and tries to understand what a Trump Presidency might mean. Observe the word 'might' in that last sentence because the man is a wild card, defined in computing as “a character that will match any character or sequence of characters in a search.” In real life, that means Trump is “a person whose influence is unpredictable or whose qualities are uncertain.”
But this is not a political analysis; instead, it is a Christian analysis, aimed at believers who in their shock plus jubilation or lamentation (depending on how you voted), might be wondering where God is at this time.
The answer is that God is where He has always been, in control of the affairs of men, even when it does not nearly look like it. Pharaoh did not think so but God was in control back then in Egypt just as He is in control now in the USA. Then the Lord said to Moses, “Now you shall see what I will do to Pharaoh. For with a strong hand he will let them go, and with a strong hand he will drive them out of his land (Exodus 6:1, New King James Version). Why did Hillary Clinton lose? God used the anger of the nation to propel a wild card to the top of the Republican ticket in an almost equally shocking series of events.
Remember how Joseph’s brothers anger ended up putting Joseph is a foreign prison? And how God was behind the scenes, working it all out? But as for you, you meant evil against me; but God meant it for good, in order to bring it about as it is this day, to save many people alive (Genesis 50:20).God caused Hillary, with her penchant for manipulation, to manipulate Debbie W. Schultz (remember her?) and Donna Brazile to subjugate the entire Democratic National Committee to her (Hillary’s) agenda, resulting in the rape of the Democratic Party. Bernie Sanders, the favorite to win that nomination, was deprived and (threatened?) into supporting her.
Each time you tell a lie, you make the next lie easier for you to tell, until, as the bible says, God gives you up to a reprobate mind. From her days of intimidating Bill’s rape victims, God had given Hillary up to a reprobate mind so that stealing the nomination from Bernie Sanders could no longer trouble her seared conscience. God was actively watching over the nation to ensure that someone with a seared conscience did not get into power.
He it was who must have moved her to choose a running mate who thought the entire Catholic church was wrong and, get this, would eventually come around to his personal, erroneous position. Her running mate was planning to bring the church to its knees, but did he think God was going to allow that? Not in eternity, because although the church is far from perfect, it remains the last defense against Sodom and Gomorrah. God badly needed to defeat that hyper-liberal and over-bearing ticket.
Unfortunately, at least from our human perspective, the alternative was just as undesirable, and not simply because of being a wild card but because of being an obnoxious wild card (not sure if there is ever a good wild card), the choice of whom unwittingly forced a lot of believers (and erstwhile semi-believers) to their knees. They prayed like never before, sometimes not even knowing what to pray for. Yay! Pastors wrote, struggling to make sense of the US political landscape because the choice before the nation was like death from HIV/AIDS or death from drug addiction.
But God was, and has always been in control; He caused Trump to choose as his running mate a solid man of faith, a man of conscience. I don’t personally know Mike Pence, so this is not about him but about how God directs the affairs of men, even those who do not personally know Him. How else could a man who did not know one verse of scripture, who did not know how to characterize a chapter of the bible, referring to 2nd Corinthians and two Corinthians, choose such a running mate? It is God; God that caused Trump to overlook Ben Carson, to bypass Reverend Mike Huckabee, that caused Ted Cruz to not be on speaking terms with Trump until after the deed was done. We could go on but you get the point.
God was controlling all the moves in a man who did not know Him. Did He not cause a heathen King to contribute to the rebuilding of the Jerusalem wall? Furthermore I said to the king, “If it pleases the king, let letters be given to me for the governors of the region beyond the River, that they must permit me to pass through till I come to Judah, and a letter to Asaph the keeper of the king’s forest, that he must give me timber to make beams for the gates of the citadel which pertains to the temple, for the city wall, and for the house that I will occupy.” And the king granted them to me according to the good hand of my God upon me (Nehemiah 2:7-8).
Poor Mike Pence, he almost abandoned ship when more of the obnoxious aspects of the wild card Republican candidate came to light. His conscience, which is obviously still sensitive, could no longer stand it; or as the bible says of the man Lot, who lived in a putrid neighborhood, his righteous soul was grieved, and delivered righteous Lot, who was oppressed by the filthy conduct of the wicked (for that righteous man, dwelling among them, tormented his righteous soul from day to day by seeing and hearing their lawless deeds) (2 Peter 2:7-8). But Mike Pence stayed on, again controlled by God, no doubt.
God is in control of it all. Stay tuned. And please don’t stop praying.