This cartoon was created by Dave Granlund of the Waynesboro Record Herald.
Two days after the first Trump-Biden Debate (9/29/2020) I took several phone calls from discouraged Christians. Since we are facing another debate I thought the following information might be helpful.
Did you feel the way my friends felt? “I couldn’t believe it. I wanted information and all I saw was anger and fighting.” “It was a rude, disgusting display of two men fussing about who was lying.” “I just turned it off and decided not to vote for either one. Yet, I’m worried about our country. What am I supposed to do, Debbie?”
After they vented, I gave them my opinion.
I understand the confusion, but we must maintain a Christian’s perspective. The proper response is to take your eyes off the flaws of both candidates and look for the spiritual, godly, moral, and compelling work that YOU MUST do.
View their first debate and all those to follow as two candidates “fighting” for the way this country will turn. We “need” passionate people in public office. It’s a good thing when candidates are passionate about their beliefs and are doing everything they can to influence your vote. However, after passion and drive, the problem lands in our laps. We must determine which one will fulfill their promise and which one is telling us the truth.
That feels extremely hard right now because we’ve had a tough year and we just want “peace”. Unfortunately, we can’t allow our need to be comforted to cause us to vote improperly.
My suggestion is to see an image in your head. Imagine Trump on one side and Biden on the other with “YOU” in the middle. Anytime they open their mouth – your hands lift toward heaven with a passionate prayer that the truth will come out. You continue to pray that YOU and others, will be led by the Holy Spirit to “know the truth and be willing to vote for God’s choice.”
Whether or not they can do the job is not determined by their passion. It is determined by their platform and their ability to be truthful about what is best for this country. They must have the ability to perform their duties with excellence and honor. They must fight for the truth even if it means they will lose. What good is it to vote for a candidate that has no intention of doing what is right for you or this country after the election?
Knowing the truth and being willing to allow the Holy Spirit to guide you is hard to do! Once we make up our mind we often don’t want to change it – even if God is leading us to do that. I’m not going to tell you who to vote for. I’m not going into those weeds. However, if you are a Christian, you are called by God to investigate the truth about any candidate and vote your faith.
I explained this problem in my book Praying for America and the Army of God. Every Christian should investigate any candidate’s platform, compare that to the “entire” Bible, and vote their faith. It’s not about personalities or who “looks” better. You may like a particular candidate’s personality – but if he/she doesn’t believe in Biblical standards, then you are first required as a Christian to stand for God’s principles.
You may be a wonderful Christian. And you may choose to vote for someone that does not believe in the Biblical view. That’s your choice, but please don’t say you voted your faith if you go against the Bible. And don’t blame God if the wrong person is chosen. When you pray for God to help America and to heal our land – you are asking God to become part of the process. You become a partner with God. He will do His part and you must do yours.
What should you do during any debate? Pray. Pray powerful prayers. Pray that God will step into the debate and cause something to happen that will “alert” every Christian to the truth about each candidate. Don’t allow Satan to keep you away from praying because the debates make you uncomfortable. If you have to, turn the sound off – but PRAY! Pray for the Holy Spirit to stand between both candidates and be present. Pray through the entire debate as if you were standing between them. Interject your faith into the debate.
I pray that as this election goes forward that all Christians will view the facts and circumstances through the lens of our faith. May we be committed to using our greatest weapon against Satan – powerful prayers.
I pray for courage and strength as we all vote for our faith!
