I just finished voting. It took over two hours of standing in line. This is an amazing election year. Passions grow more fervent on both sides, and I wonder how well the losing side will handle the letdown. As I was leaving the voting area, someone began to sing, “O-B-A-M-A!” Quite disconcerting since it was almost at the doorsteps of the voting area. It would have been the same if it had been, “Mc-C-A-I-N”, just not good, at least there.
All of this reminds me of a time in Israel when the people demanded a king, or as it says, “…now appoint a king to lead us, such as all the other nations have.” That’s right, a “king” that is attractive to the other nations and makes Israel look good. This king will “take the best of your fields and vineyards and olive groves, and give them to his attendants. He will take a tenth of your grain and of your vintage and give it to his officials and attendants…He will take a tenth of your flocks, and you yourselves will become slaves” (I’ll let you apply that to today with your own imagination, but we can only dream it would be 10%).
The prophet tried to get the people to see it another way but alas, “No! We want a king over us. Then we will be like all the other nations, with a king to lead us and to go out before us and fight our battles.”
They got their king, “…an impressive young man without equal among the Israelites – a head taller than any of the others.”
It has been said, “We get the leadership we deserve.” I guess we get the leadership that will eventually fit into God’s sacred history for us. In that, I have some consolation. While we blunder along, kings and presidents come and go, parties come into power and go out, but the Kingdom of God rolls on.
May God grant us a heart for the true Kingdom, and King, so that no matter what leader comes and goes, the people of God remain focused on the mission, and the true Messiah.
