Just the other day, I was reflecting upon this difficult national situation. There’s intense fighting between the two major political parties. The Senate is gridlocked. Citizens have lost their confidence in elected officials to solve even the most basic problems. Violence is breaking out in the cities and streets. There are wars and conflict abroad, including a desperate fight in the Middle East (including in Iran).
To make matters worse, the old-fashioned virtues and values of the Republic seem to be fading away, while vested financial interests and money have completely taken over elections.
The time I am reflecting on, of course, is around 54 B.C. in the late Roman Republic, which in so many ways resembles our own. Like the Romans, Americans will have to choose if we can keep our Republic, by staying civically involved and by recovering, with a supreme effort, our moral values and virtue.
Yet many challenges persist. What are we to do, as Christians, living in these times? Like Christians in the Roman world, such as the Roman empire, we sometimes find ourselves in the minority. This is often what happens to God’s people.
Another place we see this dynamic is in Jeremiah 29 in the Bible. This book was written as God’s people were in exile, carried away by a culture in Babylon that hated God.
We often quote Jeremiah 29:11, but it’s also important to read the context in which it was written, as author and professor Marvin Olasky has pointed out in his essay Living in Babylon.
“This is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says to all those I carried into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: ‘Build houses and settle down; plant gardens and eat what they produce. Marry and have sons and daughters; find wives for your sons and give your daughters in marriage, so that they too may have sons and daughters. Increase in number there; do not decrease. Also, seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the Lord for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper.’ … (Jeremiah 29:4-7)
Notice a couple things:
- In a time in which God’s people could have shrunk back or decreased, they were told to build houses, have families and to thrive.
- This passage also reminds us to pray for the well-being of where we live, regardless of who wins elections.
America is indeed at a crossroads. The election is just a few weeks away, on Nov. 3. For Oklahomans, there are several major issues and items on the ballot. We need to pray. We need to be educated and active and vote. We need to pray even more, trusting the Lord to work all things for good for those who love Him.
As the Book of Jeremiah also reminds us, God always gives us a hope and a future for His people, as we look to Him.
“‘For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.’”
(Jeremiah 29:11).
