Just some early morning thoughts from me to you…
“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”
Attributed-Edmund Burke, British House of Commons
“If I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or if I command the locust swarms to eat up all of your crops, or if I send an epidemic among you,
then if my people will humble themselves and pray, and search for me, and turn from their wicked ways, I will hear them from heaven and forgive their sins and heal their land.”
II Chronicles 7:13-14 (TLB)
I shared that quote by Edmund Burke with you before. But taking a look around—beginning at home, our communities, state, nation and out to the countries around the world, it’s clear to me that I need to share it again.
Never has the truth contained there been more applicable than today, and the passing of another day has done nothing to minimize the haunting truth resonating in those words.
I wondered as I posted our American flag this morning if simply hanging our nation’s symbol of all we stand for, and can be in the world, was enough to move me past the point of “doing nothing.” Hanging the flag was, after all, a statement of what I believed. I wonder if just identifying and commenting—or in some cases, criticizing—what should be different in our world, our nation, communities and individual lives was enough. I wonder whether it would be enough, if we all hung our flag. I suspect not.
Think about this for a moment with me.
In the last Presidential election, held in 2012, in the United States of America, approximately 25,000,000 Christians did not vote. Let me share that again—Twenty-five million Christians chose not to vote in a Presidential election in the United States of America!
Maybe they considered voting a right, and just didn’t like their choices. And so their voice was not heard. But think about this for a moment—is voting a right? Or is voting a duty? I wonder what Edmund Burke would say.
I wonder if those who abdicated that opportunity to vote—whether perceived as a right or duty—were aware of and believed in the influence which God had on the founding and shaping of this nation. I wonder if those Christians who chose not to vote understood that God was central in our founders’ thinking, in setting in place a system of government which allows this nation, through its elected leaders—to make decisions which will shape the course of the nation—hopefully in line with His will for our lives together.
We have a Presidential election eighty days away, which will shape our country’s destiny for decades to come. Vote? Or not vote? Duty? Or right?
A year ago a dear friend of mine began a not-for-profit organization entitled “My Faith Votes.” Dr. Ben Carson is the honorary chairman of My Faith Votes, and the purpose of the organization is not to tell any Christian how to vote, but to educate, encourage and challenge Christians to see and seize their opportunity to vote as a sacred duty entrusted to each of us by the God who helped shaped this great land.
As an aside, I encourage you to take a look at the website at—www.myfaithvotes.com—and get involved—and then vote your conscience, but vote in the primaries, and then vote again on November 8, 2016.
Looking around again, one could make the case, as the writer of II Chronicles above says, that it seems like the “locust swarms [are gathering] to eat up all of [our] crops,” and there is an “epidemic among [us].” It seems like our nation and world could use a blessing from above.
In our nation or world—what one thing would you like to see different and changed, fixed or cured? In addition to voting, what steps could you take—perhaps while also mobilizing others to your cause—to change that one thing?
Then finally, let me ask you this—why aren’t you doing it? Why aren’t we doing what each of us can do to change those areas which need changing—not only in our personal lives—but in the communities, state, nation and world around us?
Why not do what God told Solomon to have the people do, to “humble themselves and pray, and search for me, and turn from their wicked ways” so that God would then “hear [us] from heaven and forgive [our] sins and heal [our] land.” Wow!
Just a few good men and women, doing whatever they can do to change the world around them. But even more, all of us turning back to God, so that He can heal our land.
I suspect God is looking today at areas needing His healing touch…
…within the walls of our homes and hearts…
…on streets where gangs roam, children are abused, and police are executed…
…within pockets of poverty, hunger and despair we see on the evening news…
…where trafficking takes place to the continuing response of the world’s apathy…
…where murder rates soar, and sacred lives are dismissed when inconvenient…
…and wherever and whenever we find ourselves looking into the face of need.
“The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good men…and good women
…to do nothing.”
Just something for us all to think about today and every day.
In His Name—Scott
Copyright 2016. Scott L. Whitaker. All rights reserved.
