Trust in the Lord with all your heart
and lean not on your own understanding;
in all your ways submit to him,
and he will make your paths straight.
- Proverbs 3:5-6
Vindicate me, Lord,
for I have led a blameless life;
I have trusted in the Lord
and have not faltered.
Test me, Lord, and try me,
examine my heart and my mind;
for I have always been mindful of your unfailing love
and have lived in reliance on your faithfulness.
- Psalm 26:1
The Lord is my strength and my shield;
my heart trusts in him, and he helps me.
My heart leaps for joy,
and with my song I praise him.
- Psalm 28:7
They will lay siege to all the cities throughout your land until the high fortified walls in which you trust fall down. They will besiege all the cities throughout the land the Lord your God is giving you.
- Deuteronomy 28:52
To the one who is victorious and does my will to the end, I will give authority over the nations—that one ‘will rule them with an iron scepter and will dash them to pieces like pottery’—just as I have received authority from my Father.
- Revelation 2:26-27
For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.
- Ephesians 6:12
Therefore, it is necessary to submit to the authorities, not only because of possible punishment but also as a matter of conscience.
- Romans 13:5
Submit yourselves for the Lord’s sake to every human authority: whether to the emperor, as the supreme authority, or to governors, who are sent by him to punish those who do wrong and to commend those who do right.
- 1 Peter 2:13-14
Boilerplate
I’m Harold Dykstra. I’m retired, but I go to food bank distributions all over Tracy and talk to people that need someone who will listen to their story. My time is well spent. A police lieutenant suggested that I write down the conversations that I had with an angel. I did not know she was an angel at the time. The angel, for a little over a year, indwelled a life-sized posable action figure my children bought me, so that I would not be perceived as travelling alone. And in a way, she was training me for what I do while talking to the needy. She probed my heart to find out what I believed and how I express love for others. She changed my life. Since she was a doll that had come to life, we came up with the term ‘other living.’ She was not a human, an animal, or even a plant, but she was definitely living, and very vibrant. Oh, excuse me, angels have no gender, but the angel indwelled a doll named Bountiful Babs. After seeing the angel in that form for over a year, I cannot see her in my mind in any other form.
This Week’s Question
In the last episode, Babs caught a thief. Really, she caught a little boy who stole bananas from the hotel breakfast area in order for he and his mother to have something to eat. Babs then spent time introducing him the people in a church that would help, and then in having the boy apologize and promise to clean tables to make up for the stolen bananas, she learned that the hotel needed someone like his mother.
But this week, she was still aglow the next morning after going to a party that my customer had sponsored for everyone to see the Fourth of July fireworks from a restaurant’s party area on the roof.
“Well, Babs,” I asked, “Did you have fun last night?”
“Oh, yes!” Babs replied, “I had fun, and I learned a lot. According to the people that I talked to, we have the right to life only after we are born, and it might get difficult once we get old in the future. We have the right to liberty, unless we say the truth about a protected group, but I did not find anyone who knew what a protected group was. And we have the right to be happy, but no one was very happy last night, and they had not been for a long, long time.”
I laughed, “Yeah, I talked to a few of those people, too.”
Babs asked, “Where did this idea of the right to life, liberty, and happiness come from?”
I shrugged, “It came from a philosopher named John Locke. And it is not ‘happiness’. It is the pursuit of happiness. We are never guaranteed that we will catch it. We can be free to chase it though.”
Babs scrunched her nose and giggled. “I’ve met happiness. She can run really fast!”
I nodded, trying to keep my composure. “But Locke said that our inalienable rights were life, liberty, and property, or possessions. The Founding Fathers of this country were split between slave owners and people who hated slavery. If that was in the Declaration of Independence, there would have been a great deal of argument and the one big mistake that they made was ignoring the problem, hoping it might go away on its own. But the little subcommittee argued over what John Locke meant about property, and they agreed that once we have the right to our own property, then we can pursue happiness based on how we define that happiness.”
Babs asked, “Doesn’t God give us Joy?”
I nodded, “But Joy and happiness are not the same thing. Joy depends on God in your heart, but happiness depends upon circumstances. That is where that property comes into play. John Locke felt that everyone should have their own piece of land. What they do with it is what would make them happy.”
Babs scrunched her nose again, “But sometimes the crop doesn’t produce much. Sometimes a wildfire burns your house down. What do you have left to pursue happiness with? Happiness seems to depend on God’s blessings, but the government does not believe in God. Wait! One candidate says he believes in God and prays, but all the pictures of him shows him getting angry. I know God gets angry, but He tells us to love one another.”
I snickered, “The press do not like that candidate, so they pick unflattering photos. But did you get an idea who the best candidate was from your discussions last night?”
Babs giggled and nodded, “The winner of the next presidential election will be ‘None of the Above’. At least almost everybody said that was who they were voting for.”
I groaned, “I agree, but that is not the way it works. They will elect someone, even if no one is fit for the job.”
Babs furrowed her brow, “But Harold, those people were so sad because they wanted someone to believe in. It didn’t sound like anyone trusted any of the candidates, but they can trust God. Proverbs 3, Psalm 26 and Psalm 28 all talk about leaning not on our understanding, but solely trust God. But nobody listens.”
I asked, “And what does Deuteronomy 28 say about our defenses?”
Babs huffed, “When God has met His limit with us our walls will come tumbling down. That was before Jericho, but the people that heard Moses say that should have remembered when the walls of Jericho collapsed. But one generation later and they forgot. All through the kings of Judah, one good king and then the next was bad. Not all the time, but ‘good’ was like a light switch and they just turned it off.”
I nodded, “Yes, you are right. That’s why God told the church at Thyatira, in Revelation 2, that there will be a ruler, the One who will reign with an iron scepter, and He will smash evil like it was pottery. And when we humans die and go to the next life, if we have surrendered our will to God and we find ourselves in the Book of Life, our sin nature will be gone. We will gladly have Jesus as our ruler, but He wants us to be brothers and sisters.”
Babs frowned, “So, all this placing hope in a political candidate does us no good. They all have a sin nature.”
I sighed, “And sometimes, we have someone with good Christian values who could be a good leader. Notice in first and second Kings or first and second Chronicles, it does not matter what the king did as much as whether he followed in the ways of the Lord. That determined whether he was a good or bad king. And sadly, that is why a lot of the people you met last night were saying none of the above. But we know who our enemy is. That is Satan and the forces of evil, not any of these nations on earth, but I think some of them listen to Satan more than others do. But even then, the apostles Paul and Peter told us to submit ourselves to earthly authority. If for no other reason, God is allowing them to be in charge, for good or bad. But still, all things work for the good…”
Babs giggled, “for those who love the Lord and keep His commandments.”
Credits
All these conversations remind me of my conversations with my wife. We would talk about anything and everything. And most of the time, it sounded like a discussion in a Sunday school class.
And sometimes, I wish we had a chance to vote for none of the above. But whoever is elected, we must submit to the authority, but pray for them feverishly.
Soli Deo Gloria. Only to God be the Glory.
Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley 
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