The election of President Obama is historic not hopeless (we’ve been using the wrong “h”-word Christians). President Obama has risen from obscurity and finds himself now in a great position with great responsibility. He has done what no other African-American before him has done. I don’t know what great good or great bad may come from his presidency. Only time will tell. I do have confidence that even if he makes 4 years of bad decisions that it isn’t going to interrupt what God wants to do in this country. And let’s forget just looking at America for a second, because Jesus didn’t die just for George Washington and the pilgrims. God has a global plan. He wrote the original book ‘The World is Flat’. So if you look at the presidency as 4 years out of the 100 you might live and feel like there is no hope, than you’re view of things is pretty shallow and self centered.

I look at what President Obama has accomplished and politics aside, he has already inspired more people than most of us will collectively impact in our whole lives. On inauguration day I heard elementary school students telling reporters that President Obama reminds them that they can do anything. The man has a charisma and personality that helped him get into office. He connected with people. I think that charisma and personality are the very things that helped him to overcome the race barrier and become the first black president.

Could it be, that the race barrier would only be broken by someone with President Obama’s charisma? And if so, will future black candidates have fewer barriers to overcome in their political endeavors. Absolutely. So is it just possible that God will use President Obama’s achievements thus far to ignite a dream in a child, empower them to pursue it with fewer obstacles that may have not been overcome pre-Obama? Obviously the answer is I don’t know, but when I look at where our nation is, I see opportunity. I see new opportunity that didn’t exist pre-January 20 . We don’t know how President Obama’s achievements or decision will shape the course of history, but for followers of Jesus we know that God has a major role in what happens next. And that he’ll take this moment in our nations history and use it to affect His purposes. Remember, God didn’t fall of the throne with Tom Brokaw declared Barack Obama the next president.

By the way. Since this started off as a note to the church, maybe it’s most appropriate to remind the church what our responsibility is in the next 4 years (and the 4 after that, etc.). Romans 13:1-7 tells us that we are to pay taxes, respect, and honor to those in authority and that the governing systems that are in place, God has established. So chew on that for a little bit.

P.S. – yes the picture for this series does kind of weird me out. It feels very Big Brother from ‘1984’.

Some of you are still struggling with this. Let’s change the story around. Instead of asking “did God elect Obama?” let’s ask “did God kill Jesus?”. Of course God didn’t kill Jesus, but it was part of the plan. God wasn’t caught off guard by it, He knew it was coming. Why is that easier to stomach than the election of Obama? Easy – relativity. Everything is relative to what we can see and what we know about a situation. We as humans see the world in a very short scope of time (called a lifetime). So we measure everything that we experience in life and relate it’s magnitude to the impact on our lifetime. So 4 years of a presidency (which by the way, can not yet be defined as negative) out of a 90 year life seems relatively important. But God doesn’t look at the world and see isolated moments in terms of an 80-100 year lifespan. He has a much broader view of the world called eternity.

For early followers of Christ, His death wasn’t a day that they necessarily looked forward to. As you read the gospel, you get the impression that many of them didn’t understand why He had to die (Peter rebuked Him when He predicted his death) because all they saw was Jesus relative to their lives and what they had experienced while they were with Him. They couldn’t necessarily see the bigger purpose because they could only understand Christ relative to the time they had spent with Him, not in respect to the resurrection. And if you imagine the miracles and countless good that they saw take place, you can understand why they struggled to imagine the world being a better place as a result of Him dying. Really, if the disciples were doing a video blog while they were following Jesus around each day during his 3 years of ministry, I’m pretty sure that the episode of Him dying on the cross wouldn’t have been posted to YouTube that night. They could not see hope in Him dying. Here was the start of a great movement, led by Jesus, then all of a sudden it’s over. We can’t imagine feeling like the disciples because we have the clearer picture of His resurrection (the rest of the story as Paul Harvey would say), but in the moment that He died, it appeared hopeless to them. I think one of the most powerful reminders of the cross is that in hopeless situations, God is working, and He will take any situation and relate it to his broader purposes not our short-term, personal agendas. That’s what I mean by relativity.

We are so limited in how we view our lives.

Stop back Friday for the last in the series.

The inauguration got me thinking. I can’t remember any one issue in quite some time that has divided our nation as much as the last presidential campaign and the subsequent election & inauguration of President Obama. There are so many emotions in the people that I talk to around our new president. And where there is emotion, there is bound to be ignorance & stupidity. I appreciate everyone’s passion and patriotism but let’s all calm down here. If you listen to the talking heads on TV and the leaders of the ‘religious right’ (the politically correct name for the Christians) you’d think our nation has no hope of lasting through the next 4 years. Hopelessness? Really. Ok, so if you don’t know any better, then sticking your head in the sand or “moving to Canada” is just ignorance, but for everyone who graduated from 6th grade and especially those who label themselves as followers of Christ, we should know better. That’s the difference between ignorance and just plain stupidity. So church, stop being stupid.

Our hope isn’t to be found in a form of government. Be honest, did you really like that other guy that was running? Did you agree with him 100 percent? What about the last president? Do you really think he nailed it with every decision? So you could make the argument that maybe your beliefs most aligned with theirs, therefore they were more likely to please you. But if your hope is in a form of government that gets you what you want most of the time, then I would propose that you are hopeless.

Our faith is all about moments in time that appeared hopeless (key word “appeared”). But for every moment we write off as hopeless, God is eagerly waiting to remind us that there are no hopeless situations and that He has a plan to use every situation for His good. That’s not to say that God’s plan was for President Obama to be elected. But that’s not to say it wasn’t either. The point is, you and I don’t know and it’s the wrong question to ask at this point anyways. God doesn’t have a voter registration card aligning Himself with a party. That would be too narrow minded for the Creator of the world. He doesn’t have to vote, He’s in control (FYI, complete control is much better than getting a vote).

Stop back on Wednesday for Part 2.