How just simply asking a question can cause people to vapor lock in their minds and souls.
I can already feel some of the eye rolls of those reading the headline above and shaking their heads in disbelief. First off, welcome, and I hope your eyes come back to their correct position and you don’t give yourself a concussion from your headshake. I would hate to feel responsible for that.
Really. Unless you are one of those haters that are just ticked off you haven’t been picked for a cabinet spot in a possible Biden administration.
Now, let me just lay the groundwork for this post. I have struggled with writing this article for about 2 weeks and finally decided to sit down and just roll with it. I have spoken with a few people whose judgment I trust and, while not all agree with the premise or even simply asking the question I have in the title, they have given me their thoughts in a straightforward manner. That is all anyone can ask for, in my opinion, so I am greatly appreciative of them.
So, here we go for what, for me, has been a thought exercise and challenging some aspects of how I view my understanding of God and my relationship with Him.
I am a CHRISTian and unabashedly so. I can’t razzle and dazzle you with Scripture quotes, and their numbers from chapters, off the top of my head (I know John 3:16 because of that guy at football games); but I have read many of the stories in the Bible and seek out those that present Scripture in a way that is broken down into small pieces for my soul and mind to digest. I am always looking for people who talk and write of the Bible and particularly the Gospels, in a manner that is direct and also not afraid to have their thoughts on it questioned and an honest discussion to be had. I can say I have learned much from those types of CHRISTians and have valued their time either in person or just watching on the interwebs.
Now, until recently, the thought of anyone actually saying that the Lord Jesus would want a particular candidate to win an election had never crossed my mind. I have never personally prayed for a candidate to win nor a sports team etc, etc. I know I have prayed the Lord to pull my rear out of some situations, and thankfully, He has heard and guided me, although not always in the way I thought it would happen.
I do also believe that God has intervened in many an event, not only in world history, but in the very founding of this country. If you are one of those people that want to believe that the United States was founded by chance, and some of the greatest minds in human history just happened to be around the same place at the same time, and that was just a coincidence, I find your lack of faith extremely amusing. This country was founded by men and women who not only believed in the Almighty, but truly believed He was guiding their hands in the events of their time, and I also believe this to be true.
Now, even with my firm belief of intervention from Heaven always possible, I just never considered praying for a particular candidate to win, but rather left it up to the Lord’s will to be done on Earth as it is in Heaven. I was more than content to leave it there, and deal with whatever comes our way as a nation or state.
Yet, on the Thursday after the election, I had the clearest and most concise thought of “praying” for Donald Trump to be declared the winner pop into my head. I had not read that anywhere that I recall, nor had I talked to anyone who had said that they or anyone else should do this. As I said above, this was a total non sequitur for me, and I resisted the thought. As I continued into the evening, I still could not shake that feeling, similar to what I had gotten in the past, when I felt the need to pray for something, and finally yielded to it before bed. I went ahead and added this to my prayer list — that if it was the will of the Lord for Trump to win, let it be done.
I should add for the record, that I had already mentioned on my video show that I could read the tea leaves and declared that Joe Biden would most likely be the next POTUS the day before this thought occurred to me. Democrats would never fume so hot and heavy over a nonexistent, Russiagate scandal for three-and-a-half years, with a ridiculous impeachment debacle added on, and not work the margins like the devil to be denied the White House again. The 2016 election was just something they will never forget and, come hell or high water, they would not be denied.
So, for that brief moment, on Thursday, November 5th, I let my faith overrule my secular mind in regards to the dirty, unseemly world of politics and did something I never gave a thought to in the past: Offer a prayer to the Lord for the victory of Donald Trump and that, right there, should be the end of this story.
However, it is not.
Even though Donald Trump has lost almost every court battle, and has had people leave or be fired from the administration over anything related to the court cases or people saying there is no evidence of fraud. (The fraud/cheating part I suspect will be the same as the Hunter Biden story has been — revealed after the coast is clear for the press to talk about it which, in the election case, will be sometime after Jan 21, 2021.) So what else is there to say or do about this and pray for him to win?
Being the thought had never occurred to me of praying for someone to win an election other than for the Lord’s will be done, it was so odd to me, I decided to Google about people praying for Donald Trump to win — and I could not believe what I found. There were over two dozen articles of people not only talking about praying for Trump to win, but actually prophesying that Trump was still GOING to win, weeks after the voting ended, and even still to this very day.
Saying I was shocked was a bit of an understatement.
Now, I know very little about prophets other than the Old Testament had some really good ones — and the reason they were good was God did speak to them. He told them what needed to be relayed to the people, and we flawed humans did not always take the advice from our Creator. Yet, when they did, good and awesome things happened, and the lands in which those souls lived flourished. I also know a bit about the false prophets and how misleading that can be and the danger of heeding those people’s words. Being I’m new to this whole line of thought, I have to say this has been a bit challenging absorbing all this, but I am determined to learn.
So, the natural question is, could there be anything to this movement of people saying they are hearing from God about this election and how Donald Trump figures into it?
In my diving into this topic, there have been many voices I have been reading and listening to that are saying that they know the Lord’s will for the election. One, in particular, I have found to be consistent in both his calm demeanor and firm conviction of what he and others he trusts have said that God has communicated to them about His will being done here on Earth. That gentleman is Dutch Sheets of Dutch Sheets Ministries of South Carolina.
Dutch does a daily YouTube video called Give Him 15 that explores what he and others are hearing and seeing from God. He firmly believes that our Father in Heaven has revealed His plans to the modern-day prophets and talks about this each and every day in these videos. He has also traveled with his friends and has visited every contested state to hold prayer vigils to pray into those regions to have the Lord’s wishes be done here on Earth. Dutch also helped organize a prayer meeting across all 50 states that ended with a 3 a.m. prayer vigil in front of Independence Hall in Philadelphia, which they dubbed Project Valkyrie, which I found absolutely fascinating.
I have included links to these videos for people to take the time to watch for themselves, if they so choose, and they can make up their own minds. I know this might make some upset or even scared, but the discussion of ideas or thoughts of a benevolent nature should never put you in either one of those states of mind. If it does, take a deep breath, and I know you will be fine.
However, I know that some of you (if not most) have gotten this far and are thinking: WHAT IN THE #$%^& ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT? I’m not going to sit here and tell you that I blame you. I truly do not. I have gone, in a mere 4 weeks, from all of my adult, praying life, thinking that ever praying for an outcome of a certain person in an election was not kosher, to now questioning whether or not my Lord and Savior has told a number of other believers that He wants Donald Trump to have another 4-year term.
Talk about a bit of a roller coaster.
Yet, I also know that if you never question things you are so sure of, then you are most likely not sure of it at all. How many times have we been told that the science is settled or the data is clear by people wanting to shut down any discussion? We should be constantly challenging and questioning our faith and secular worldview and not be afraid of doing so. I know that,when I have engaged with someone who wants to mock my belief in a sky daddy and I have been hit with some points I did not have a clear answer to, it has forced me to reexamine that aspect of my faith, and I have always become stronger in not only my belief in God but my ability to explain it more clearly than before.
So, could Joe Biden actually be the preferred candidate of God instead? Anything is possible. I would find it a little more difficult to imagine that the Creator who said He knew you in the womb would be all for the guy and gal who thinks that the 60 million babies that have been aborted “legally’ since 1973 is just a “God”-given right and it is no big deal. Also, that taxpayers should be more than happy to pay for it is really the icing on the cake of all-time inhuman ideas.
Could that really be the case, though? Maybe. Yet, as unlikely I think that is, I’m at least willing to work that scenario over a bit in my mind and would pray about it. I’m willing to push myself and petition Heaven in prayer, and ask if that is where God is at.
I have also considered that maybe a bunch of well-meaning people have just gotten this message wrong, or even why, if this is His will, he didn’t allow Joe Biden’s candidacy to burn like his possible presidency will surely do.
Well, I can tell you all the people I have read or watched do not come across as some of the crazy or inconsiderate people I have seen promoting their view this year. Let’s face it, 2020 has shown us lots of people willing to destroy property and life to advance a view, and I can’t find any of that with these people speaking out about what they say God has told them. Also, the saying “God works in mysterious ways” is a popular expression, and if you want to brush up on why, just start at the book of Exodus to get a view of how that works. We are always working on His time and not ours, and those clocks don’t always jibe like we think they should.
Leading up to the election, I watched quietly as many of my friends who are well-rounded CHRISTians stated that Donald Trump was the equivalent of the Anti-Christ lite, and Joe Biden would be better. Now, once again, this happened before the thought ever occurred to me that God could or would voice to anyone His choice in an election, so I didn’t give much thought to the lectures given by these folks from a mountain of smugness. Yet, I have a question for all those well-meaning folks:
Would you, my fellow believers in Christ, who voted for Joe Biden out of severe dislike for Donald Trump, or just because you felt he was more qualified (those people do exist), be able to change your position if you knew Joe was not our Lord’s choice? Also, if you didn’t vote for Biden or Trump but just hate the current president, could you drop the hate and align with God’s will?
Would you? Could you?
If you are truly a CHRISTian, I hope so.
I had a brief thought that challenged my orthodoxy on praying for winners of elections and it has led me to a whole new branch of looking at CHRISTianity, with new eyes to explore and challenge myself with. I’m well aware that people prophesying is not a new thing, but it is something I have never explored in any serious way. Just because God does not speak to you or me in this manner does not mean He is not speaking to others in this way and, as the old adage says, only time will tell.
So, to my fellow CHRISTians, I leave you with this:
We are just a mere week away from celebrating the birth of our Savior. The one whose birth, crucifixion, death, and resurrection were foretold millennia before they happened. He who is the Alpha and Omega and is the creator of the world we live in now and has already prepared a room for us in his heavenly kingdom. If you truly believe this, then you know He is capable of anything in this world or Heaven.
Could He still want Donald Trump to win?
Don’t be afraid to challenge yourself and think it over.