Tag Archives: politics

Why I Can’t Be a Patriot

Patriotism ~ love for or devotion to one’s country (Merriam-Webster) ~ devoted love, support, and defense of one’s country; national loyalty. (Dictionary.com)

“By ‘patriotism’ I mean devotion to a particular place and a particular way of life, which one believes to be the best in the world but has no wish to force upon other people. Patriotism is of its nature defensive, both militarily and culturally.” ~ George Orwell, Notes on Nationalism

I was born and raised military. As a little girl, I would polish my dad’s combat boots and the brass for his uniforms, and I always felt a sense of pride in it, though I would not have known the words to tell you that. The sight of soldiers and combat boots was as commonplace in my life then as the sight of people with cell phones is today. Naturally, I grew up and married a soldier, and within a few years grew bored so it made perfect sense to join the Army myself.

When I finished my enlistment and was simultaneously done with my marriage, I left the military and walked into a completely different life. It took less than a year for me to regret my choice not to re-enlist. I missed the community of military life and the discipline required to be a soldier. I missed the sense of purpose. I missed the sight of soldiers and the sound of taps at the end of every workday. Whenever I went back home for a visit, the familiar sound of helicopters on maneuvers at all hours was comforting, like home-cooking comforting. Is that weird? Maybe it’s weird. I don’t know. It’s not weird to me, but it may be to you. Unless you grew up on military bases. If that’s you, I know that you know, right? Do you miss it too?

Anyway, then I met someone and, you know, kids came, and then my military world became just a part of my past. But the patriotism it instilled in me never left. The pride in our military, in what our flag stands for, in what we stand for…it has always run strong in my veins, and if you dared to talk bad about any of it, I would turn on you. I was, in every sense of the word, a patriot. Proud of this nation and convinced it’s the greatest on the earth.

I am pro-life, and pro-first and second amendments and want both preserved. I also have a deep respect for the office of the President of this country, even if I do not agree with or even like who occupies that office at the moment. I love the freedom this country affords me to vocalize my opinion, to practice my faith without persecution, and to have a say in who governs our way of life. I am so grateful to God for where He chose to plant me, and I would not want to live anywhere else, except heaven.

But lately. Lately I have felt the pull of the Holy Spirit to reposition my heart, to see with different eyes, to get the perspective from heaven. And that has been hard on my patriotic soul.

To reposition my heart is to consider my true home. To recognize that God has, through the blood of Christ, made me a foreigner on this earth. Regardless of where I’m planted, my citizenship is in heaven. I know, I know. We all quote it and nod our heads in agreement and then go right back to our outrage, our theories, and our side of the argument. But my transference of citizenship is not just a theory, it is as true as the death and resurrection of Jesus. God has told us something that very few of us in the Body of Christ actually live out as truth. We agree it’s true, but we don’t live it. To reposition my heart means I have to live it. Everyday.

It means I have to be willing to shift my loyalties and pull away from the umbilical cord of patriotism for a country that is actually not my home. It’s a slow process because I have a deep identity as a patriot within me that I now have to deny. I cannot be a patriot, because it divides my devotion. It clouds my view of reality.

Which means I need to see things with different eyes. Take off the rose-colored lens I’ve seen this country through, and see it from a distance. From the heavens. To see what God sees. As I have attempted to draw back and get a bigger, better view, my heart has hurt. I now see a sin-sick nation that has, for the most part, turned from God in terrible pride, rebellion, and arrogance, bent on power and control. And right now, I bet some of you think I’m talking about Trump, and others think I’m talking about Biden. It is neither of them, it is us. The collective nation that has reduced our utter moral decay into a blame game of one party or the other, each of us believing that God stands with us on either the right or the left. Thinking we can bring God down to our level of self-righteousness and arrogance while He brings judgment to the other side.

Woe unto us.

To see with different eyes means I have to be willing to remove my patriotic glasses that sees good on the right and bad on the left (or vice versa), and look at this country as a whole, and see what God sees and I’m just saying, it’s a freaking horror show.

“Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who substitute darkness for light
and light for darkness, who substitute bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter.” ~ Isaiah 5:20

I know we all want to believe that when God looks at the United States, He sees what we see. He sees the greatest nation on the earth, a superpower, an idealistic place where the American dream is attainable, and “bring me your huddled masses” makes us more virtuous than all others. He sees democracy at it’s finest. A Republic, built on the belief that all men are created equal, although we have never really lived that way.

I think maybe, collectively, we don’t consider that He sees rampant sexual sin in the forms of pornography, adultery, homosexuality, and unfettered fornication without consequences and that we have actually fought for the right to most of it. Do we think He simply shakes His head over our lust for more – more stuff, more money, more power, as though He just caught us sneaking a cookie before dinner? Do we ever wonder what He thinks as He witnesses millions of wombs being emptied through the murder of the unborn? Or do we think He agrees that we have the right to kill our babies? Do we think He agrees with “my body, my choice”, or do we actually just not care about or need His agreement?

Deception and corruption, lying and cheating, are everywhere, at every level of governance, in every position of authority. Marriages and children both being defiled by sexual sin in, really, alarming numbers. Do you know that it is estimated that one in three women have had some form of sexual abuse as children? And all of this is simply the tip of the iceberg. Our sins go much deeper than what many of us know, deeper than what we read about on the internet (our primary source of truth these days).

We sin without shame in this nation, and then ask God to bless us, and be on our side, and agree with us that we are the greatest nation, ever.

“For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God;” (Romans 3:23)

I don’t think that, collectively, we understand that we have fallen so very short of the glory of God. We just keep pretending that it isn’t so.

I cannot, before God, hold onto my patriotic pride. It feels like a betrayal in some ways, but that is part of the process for me, I suppose. I have let go of patriotism in order to take hold of the heart of God. I know people will say you can have both, but I am of the belief that holding onto God with one hand while trying to hold onto something else with the other is a dangerous endeavor. I find it is wise for me to hold onto God with both hands. It’s just better that way.

So now what? Now, I do what I am most called and equipped to do. I speak truth, and I pray, as a citizen of heaven, for the people in this nation. I pray for the outpouring of the gospel and repentance, because I know that until hearts are surrendered over to God through faith in Jesus, nothing will change. And because I know that God is after people, those He created for fellowship with Him and are now living on the other side of a great chasm, separated from Him. God is not playing some cosmic game of battleship with the nations of the earth. He is revealing Himself to the people of the nations so that they might believe and be saved from the coming day of wrath. It has always and will ever be about restoring our relationship with Him so that we will not perish. So I pray, with what will hopefully become an undivided interest in what God is after, rather than what I want to see happen in the politics of this country.

So to my fellow believers, I say this: We are the Church of Christ and we know that this life is short and eternity is, well, eternal. I am compelled to urge us to check our investment in what is temporary versus what is eternal. What are we raising the next generation to fix their eyes on?

Have we the courage to lay our hearts next to God’s so that we see the truth about our hearts? Can we put all of our national pride, our allegiance to a party or a cause, up to the light of God’s word and let Him show us what we need to lay down?

Can we please check our hearts? Can we please, for the love of all that’s holy, close our mouths for a minute? Will we remember who we are – foreigners on this earth, citizens of heaven? That’s a real thing, not just something in a storybook. We should probably take it more seriously than we do.

Can we lay down our pride and our need to be right, and just pick up our cross and go love who God loves? Can we please open our eyes and see that only God is good and only God is great and nations are nations only by His hand and let it humble us and pull the prayer from our lungs and quiet the national pride that excuses our gossip and our hatred? I think we can do this. I pray we can do this.

Because a storm is coming and God resists the proud but draws near to the humble and beloved, we’re going to want Him near.

Yeah, but is it bigger than God?

“Don’t make this bigger than Me.”

For the second time in four years I heard God speak those words to me. In 2016 I was diagnosed with cancer, and in December of 2020 I was told I have diabetes. Both times I began to obsess. With the cancer, there wasn’t anything I could do except say yes to the surgery to remove all my “lady bits”. It was uterine cancer, so everything had to go, but what came and tried to stay was all manner of fear and worry, and what-if. Until God reminded me that He is bigger.

Yesterday, I realized that since December 22nd, I’ve been obsessing over Diabetes. On December 23rd, my entire lifestyle changed, meaning I stopped eating what was killing me and began eating what would help me live. I stopped being completely sedentary and began walking every day. My fingers are now pin cushions and my scale has come to expect my appearance first thing every morning. I’ve lost 10 pounds in the month since the diagnosis, but yesterday, it wasn’t enough. I was discouraged because neither weight nor blood sugar levels are going down fast enough. So I started trying to think of ways to get this diabetes thing turned around faster. And that’s when God repeated to me what He had said before –

“Don’t make this bigger than Me.”

It took decades – decades – of abusing my body to get me to this place, and decades are not undone in a month. Maybe not in six months. Could be a year. Could be more. So I need to settle in, put my head down and do the work of being kind to my body. A friend of mine quoted someone (I don’t know who) recently…

“Eating well is an act of worship”

…and it is amazingly effective motivation to put health instead of death into my body.

That’s the short version of my current circumstances. But I keep thinking of His word to me, and I want to impart what is on my heart to you ~

Don’t make your pain bigger than your Comforter.

Don’t make your illness, your diagnosis bigger than your Healer.

Don’t make your overdue bills or your job loss bigger than your Provider.

Don’t make your addiction bigger than your Deliverer.

Don’t make your chaos bigger than your Peace.

Don’t make what’s going on in our nation right now bigger than the One who rules the heavens and the earth.

Whatever you are dealing with today dear one, whatever is sitting with you at the moment, please remember that God is still the biggest power in the room.

Whatever is against you, make it bow to the One who is for you. Whatever lie is trying to convince you, make it bow to the One who is Truth.

He exercised this power in Christ by raising Him from the dead and seating Him at His right hand in the heavens— far above every ruler and authority, power and dominion, and every title given, not only in this age but also in the one to come. And He subjected everything under His feet and appointed Him as head over everything for the church, which is His body, the fullness of the one who fills all things in every way.

Ephesians 1:21-23

There is nothing in this world, nothing in your life, that is not subject to Jesus. His authority is bigger, His power is bigger, His rule and reign are bigger, and beloved, His love is so much bigger than any other love.

Jesus. His name is above every single name that can be named. Every last one.

Stop obsessing. Stop living in fear. Stop letting your heart be troubled. Stop making the storm bigger than God in your own heart and mind. He is and will always be the biggest power in any room.

Jesus, forgive me for letting anything become bigger than You in my mind. This storm is under Your beautiful feet. I will rest in the shadow of Your wing. I will rest in Your power. I will rest in Your goodness, Your faithfulness, and Your sovereignty over the heavens and the earth. I will rest in You, Jesus.

Genesis 34—The Lost Victims

Dinah was a young girl that historians say was around 15. Her father was Jacob, son of Isaac, son of Abraham, father of the Israelites. Schechem was a prince, son of King Hamor. Gentiles.

Schechem raped Dinah, Jacob’s daughter, and in her culture, it meant she was ruined. King Hamor recognizes that he must act quickly, but it wasn’t with any sort of sorrow for his son’s sin. It was opportunity that he had in mind.

But Hamor said to them… Intermarry with us; give us your daughters and take our daughters for yourselves.  You can settle among us; the land is open to you. Live in it, trade in it, and acquire property in it.

Dinah’s brothers wanted something else. They agreed to Hamor’s request, with one condition. Every one of their males had to get circumcised, in keeping with the Abrahamic covenant. No male can be part of that covenant without circumcision. And they know what adult circumcision will do to the men. It will incapacitate them, make them unable to fight when the brothers come for their revenge.

They shook hands or exchanged goats or whatever they did back then to seal a deal, and 3 days later the brothers attacked. All the men, including the king and his son, were killed, Dinah was rescued and brought back home. And then they faced Jacob.

Then Jacob said to Simeon and Levi, “You have brought trouble on me by making me obnoxious to the Canaanites and Perizzites, the people living in this land. We are few in number, and if they join forces against me and attack me, I and my household will be destroyed.”

As I read this story, I sensed that Dinah got lost in the middle of two sides trying to get what they wanted. Lost in the deception, the violence, and greed. Lost between people who made her victimization about themselves.

And now I’m looking at us.

I’m looking at the burning cities, the utter destruction being rained down, and the sounds of voices that are screaming their hatred. I see the fury of a generation determined to eradicate the history of a nation they admittedly hate, burning the flag that covers the coffins of men and women who died defending that same nation, and their right to burn it down. There is no reasoning. No actual conversations taking place. Maybe talking was attempted in the beginning, but not now. Now, an angry Godzilla is seeking revenge for something. Anything. Everything. Violence, hatred, deception, mistrust, and confusion – it’s the air we breathe now.

I wonder if Dinah felt seen. I wonder if she felt that her family cared more about what was done to her, than how it affected them.

I wonder the same thing about the many victims we have today. The black ones. The white ones. The brown ones and those of every other color. The ones in jogging shorts and the ones in uniform. The children. The grieving families.

If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand.
{Mark 3:24}

battle strong

“First of all, then, I urge that petitions, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for everyone, for kings and all those who are in authority, so that we may lead a tranquil and quiet life in all godliness and dignity.  This is good, and it pleases God our Savior, who wants everyone to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.” – 1 Timothy 2:1-4

I’ve tried staying out of it. Just stay low and go on with my life as though nothing was hitting the fan. Give no opinion, stay out of the ring, rise above. But between me and God, there have been questions. Lots of them. Because oh, I have opinions. Big ones. I also have enough years on me to know that no matter how glassfirm my opinion, how right it seems, how important it feels…it isn’t. It is simply an opinion. One person’s answers to life based on seeing things through a glass darkly. So I began to ask God His opinion.Continue reading “battle strong”

a King is coming. no vote required.

November 6, 2012. The candidates will once again line up and let this country’s citizens choose their leader, and the great machine called democracy will roar to life at voting booths everywhere.

At no time in my life has the political arena been more prominent to me than these past few years. The election of President Obama, if it did nothing else, stirred people’s indignation like no other in my memory. And while I have stayed blissfully ignorant of most political issues, I often found myself joining in the fiery frenzy of the great Republican outcry, but all the while it felt like I was shouting and shaking my fist at something that had little or nothing to do with me. I think God was whispering to me; I just needed to stop shouting so I could hear Him.  I discovered that there is something familiar in our shouting.

The Jewish people had been promised a Messiah, and they eagerly waited for Him to appear. But it turns out, their reason for wanting a Messiah was different than God’s reason for giving them one. They were looking for a political ruler, a King who would free them from tyranny, and set up His rule over Israel. He did not meet their expectations, so they turned on Him and crucified Him.

Even after His death and resurrection, we see His disciples’ inability to fully grasp what Jesus came here to do. They had embraced Him as the true Messiah, were confused at His death, and were still trying to get the picture in focus after His resurrection, when He spoke with them of the Kingdom of God. Their question shows the fuzziness of  that picture.

“So when they met together, they asked him, ‘Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?'” (Acts 1:6) 

We aren’t all that different, if you ask me. Don’t we elect our president with the hopes for restoration of America? Those in the Church ally themselves with the candidate who looks most like us, and on election day we are essentially asking the same question the disciples asked. “Lord, are You at this time going to restore America to You? (did we cast enough votes, Lord?)”

And we, including those in the Church, are outraged by those on the other side of our political alliance, who, in our minds, vote for the darkness to increase. I think our outrage is rooted in a mistaken belief that we have a right to live in a darkness-free zone because, after all, this is America (one of roughly 196 nations on the earth, and not even the one referred to as the apple of His eye…but still), and our money clearly says we trust in God.  

So, in our great indignation we rail against the government/president/mayor/grocery store manager. We can see them, so its easier than railing against the “rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms” that we cannot see. Wait. Did you catch that? Rewind it. “against the powers of this dark world…”.  And there you have it. Our world, all 196 nations, is dark, and getting darker. As it turns out, it’s not the Democrats’ fault. Who knew?

We will never be able to vote darkness out of our country. We are the light of the world, and our light is to draw people out of darkness. It is to reveal not a political ruler, but a crucified Savior. Our agenda is the Kingdom of God, not the kingdom of America. By virtue of living in a democracy, we have the civic right to cast our vote for a leader, but we are not voting in the one man who can turn back the darkness. Scripture clearly tells us that darkness will increase.

“But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days. People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God…” (2Timothy 3:1-4)

But, lest we become discouraged, let us also remember that there is an end in sight. There is a King. He has made the world a promise, and He will fulfill it.

Yes, a King will come, and the light will be taken from the world.

“For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first.  After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever. Therefore encourage each other with these words. “ (1Thessalonians 4:16-18)

A King will come, and it will be a bad day for darkness.

 “I saw heaven standing open and there before me was a white horse, whose rider is called Faithful and True… He is dressed in a robe dipped in blood, and his name is the Word of God. The armies of heaven were following him, riding on white horses and dressed in fine linen, white and clean….He treads the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God Almighty. On his robe and on his thigh he has this name written:

   KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS.” (Revelation 19:11-16)

A King will come, and the darkness will be no more.

“And the devil, who deceived them, was thrown into the lake of burning sulfur, where the beast and the false prophet had been thrown. They will be tormented day and night for ever and ever.” (Revelation 20:10)

A King will come, and it will truly be finished.

“Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea.  I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.” (Revelation 21:1-4)

In the meantime, darkness does threaten. But when we read scripture, primarily Paul’s letters to the churches, we see that he wasn’t so much concerned about the darkness outside the church as he was the darkness threatening the church from within. 

There are rulers, authorities, powers of this dark world and spiritual forces of evil that target our own hearts and minds, our homes and our families, and thus, the Church. 

Does it have our full attention? Are we casting aside our own deeds of darkness, renewing our own minds, guarding what our eyes see and our tongues speak? Are we asking God to ruthlessly search our hearts and expose our own darkness?

Or are we just convinced it’s all the President’s fault, while we hope that this time we’ll vote darkness outa here and once again be right with God?