This was from Jim Daly's blog (Focus on the Family) which, despite being regularly delivered to my email, I almost never read. What caught my eye this time was the subject line which read, "The Presidential Election of 2020: Stop the Blame Game". So I read it - I thought it was good enough to share. Bottom-line, the government of the United States was never intended to be the hope of the people. The US Constitution and Bill of Rights lay down the foundation but never suppose that life, liberty and happiness will come from the government...rather, they promise that life, the right to liberty (freedom) and one's ability to pursue happiness will be defended by the government. We would do well, as a nation, to remember this. The government is not responsible for everything that happens in this country and to make it seem that way is to put the government on a pedestal that it was never meant or intended to be on. No amount of government oversight, regulation, control or programming will stop people from dying, stop disasters from happening, or solve the cultural issues we face. We need God - and we need the love of Jesus and his Holy Spirit inside of us. That is our only true hope.
"If you tuned into last night’s
debate or have spent any amount of time following this year’s race, you know
blame is now the name of the game in the 2020 presidential election.
Every affliction must be assigned
a villain.
It wasn’t always so. Let me
describe a true-life scene for you:
Record deaths from the virus were
mounting, taxing hospitals beyond their capacity. On one day alone, over 60
desperate calls for medical help in New York City go unaided.
Meanwhile, a blizzard in North
Dakota killed 34 people and a deadly tornado outbreak was sweeping through the
South, killing dozens in its path. On Palm Sunday, twisters claimed the lives
of 380 people throughout the Midwest and South. Days later, seven violent F-4
tornadoes devastate Mississippi, Alabama and Tennessee.
Compounding the gathering woes was
a deadly, category 2 hurricane in Louisiana, swamping low-lying properties and
washing out roads and railroad tracks.
There was more.
In a single day, 5 wildfires
ravage the dried-out Adirondacks.
In Chicago and Independence, Kansas,
race riots with police rage, while another wicked feud is averted in Arkansas.
Our current life in 2020, the
apocalyptic consequences of gross presidential mismanagement and/or the
reckless ignoring of cataclysmic climate change?
Not quite.
Rather, a snapshot of President
Woodrow Wilson’s America one-hundred years ago in 1920, just as the death toll
for the Spanish flu pandemic approached 675,000 in the United States and 5
million across the globe.
By 1920, Wilson was in his second
term, hampered by a stroke suffered a year earlier, but still riding high from
being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for helping negotiate the peace treaty to
end World War I.
Yet, despite the escalating death
toll attributable to the influenza, Wilson made no public statements about it
throughout the multiple-year pandemic.
No daily press briefings. No big
speeches.
Not a single word.
Why?
Historians have long suggested
Wilson was singularly focused on World War I, but by the end of 1920,
hostilities in Europe had been over for two years.
I suspect he didn’t say anything
about it because nobody was blaming him for it.
Once upon a time, Americans didn’t
expect their president or their government to solve every problem. They
understood that some things were outside not only a politician’s control, but
also mankind’s.
They recognized that government
can try to minimize and mitigate catastrophes, but in an open society, bad
things happen. It’s inevitable. It’s the story of humanity.
It’s a doctor’s job to alleviate
suffering, but it’s God’s to cure.
In other words, men and women can
help – but only God can heal. As government takes a more active role in
people’s lives, that’s become something of a foreign concept.
In fact, many now rely on
government far more than God.
Tragically, tens of millions of
deaths have been attributable to disease and natural disasters over the
centuries. Perhaps some plagues and pandemics could have been avoided or
reduced if people knew then what we know now – but hindsight is always 20/20.
Countless natural disasters struck
the world long before the proliferation of fossil fuels and charges of carbon
and ozone pollution. From floods to fires, catastrophes preceded cars and
factory chimneys.
Despite presiding as president in
the midst of the explosion of a global pandemic, Democrat Woodrow Wilson was
lionized, with The New York Times lauding him for his “unflagging zeal and
devotion.”
As a Christian, I try to look
inward before casting stones outward. I also recognize there are so many
difficult things happening in this world that are outside of my control, like
disease and natural disasters. Why God allows suffering like COVID-19 is the
type of question people have been asking for ages, but I do know He uses
everything to accomplish His purposes.
“The problem with the world is it
blames problems on things besides sin and identifies salvation on things
outside God,” says my friend, pastor Dr. Tim Keller.
I’m not going to hold my breath
waiting for sin to catch the blame for our current challenges – but in the
“blame game,” that’s the hands-down winner."
