A little selective theology going on here......

Before anyone reads this let me warn you that I am not as good a writer as my son Ryan. So, without further eloquence.....................
Yesterday one of my second graders confronted me as only an outraged seven year-old can. He came up to me with outrage written all over his face, arms folded across his chest, feet planted firmly and said "You told me that God answers our prayers, Mrs. K." I looked at him quite shocked and answered "Yes, I did indeed tell you that." Before the answer was completely out of my mouth he rebutted with the following, "I prayed for 100% on my math test and God didn't give it to me. You were wrong!" There goes the text of my lesson for the day. I, of course, had taught them that God does indeed answer prayer but I had also predicated that with the fact that He answers with what He knows to be best for us. I also used the illustration that if you pray for a 100% on a test and then don't study for the test and count only on God and your prayers to get that good grade then God may not answer your prayer the way that you want because He is counting on you to do some work as well. (I know this boy well and I am willing to bet the rent that is just what he did)
This whole situation got me to thinking about the election. Many, many people have been praying fervently about the outcome of the election. This is a good thing, I am not criticizing or making comment about that. But already I have heard sour talk about the outcome that we have realized and how "we prayed so hard" and "we didn't get what we asked for" or words to that affect. My thought is just this. What work has been done to go along with the prayers? And I am not talking about in the short term. In the long term, what are the good people of this country doing to back up the prayers that have been said for the outcome of this election? And why only the prayers for this particular election? What about prayers day in and day out? God is counting on us to do our best day in and day out is what I am saying.
I have an exercise that I do with the kids in my class that is proving to be a good teaching tool. Each week I secretly choose someone from the class to be my "chosen" person. Someone who has to be good even though the rest of the class may is being not so good all around them. Just like after the fall when God's chosen people were supposed to be good while awaiting the Savior while everyone else was being bad all around them. Sometimes they fell too and gave in to temptation and became bad themselves and God had to punish them. Anyway, the next week the "chosen" person gets a reward if they succeed. The people of our nation have to be the same way. We have to be good as an example to the rest of the world. It says in the bible that to those who have been given much much will be expected of them. Much has been given to this country and, hard as it is to take, we are looked up to for that reason. To pray only when the chips are down is not good enough. To rally when we come under attack, like after 9/11, is not good enough. We have to be united as a nation at all times.
So what do we do? We have a new president. You may not like him, so what. You may not agree with his policies, who cares. He is our leader. You can rally behind him without compromising your beliefs and principals. You can show unity without giving up who and what you stand for. There are means and methods in place in our Constitution for showing when and where you disagree. Do I sound idealistic? Maybe it's about time this country got a little idealistic and began to practice the principals upon which it was founded.
Keep praying!!!! Start being the type of person and citizen that God wishes of us and perhaps He will again reward this country as He has so richly done in the past.
10:07 AM
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