What if we asked God to raise up an army of believers to bring justice to a difficult social injustice and - pause - He DID it?
What if we prayed for something and God gave us exactly what we wanted but wrapped it up in a box that we didn’t recognize?
I’m afraid there is a lot more to the topic of immigration that many Republican pro-life candidates and elected officials may be missing.
I was fortunate to attend the Texas Press Association summer conference one week after attending the Texas Republican Convention.
What a study in contrasts!
My brain was on overload by the time we left the GOP even though I heard later from friends that we missed more raucous discussion on the floor of the last general session.
One young friend shared how surprising it was to hear grown men have “temper tantrums” while amplifying it over a microphone. Clearly, it was his first convention. Welcome to American politics as usual.
A week later at the TPA a friend reminded me comfortingly that US politics was a “bloodbath” back in the 1800s, too, an era that this newspaper man/author often researches in his personal time.
In spite of the fact that downright meanness seems to be the standard of American politics, I’m tired of unkindness masquerading as “truth.” Truth can be plainly spoken without being vitriolic.
Being a passionate – okay, opinionated - person myself I too get the self-indulgent temptation to speak bluntly without taking a 10 second pause to measure the effect of my words on those hearing them. I try to keep in mind that while God is All-knowing, I’m not. And neither are any of our office-holding, public servants.
Usually, I enjoy the rough and ready nature of Texas politics.
But this time the stakes are high.
As one Texan friend with Latina heritage confided, “No one is in favor of abortion.” Then she added that rhetoric on immigration is “hateful.”
What if, hearing our entreaties for help in the effort to curtail and eliminate abortions in this country, God decided to send a deluge of hard-working, God-fearing people to our aid?
But what if in the complicated, often heart-rending issues surrounding immigration, we failed to recognize the prize? What if in our frustration we failed to have the useful and constructive public conversations that will produce solutions regarding immigration and, instead, settled for sound bites?
What if we simply told God, “Never mind, I’ve decided I’d rather keep my wallet in my pocket. What I asked You for is going to cost me too much in taxes?”
Just a thought.
Cathy Primer Krafve, aka Checklist Charlie, lives and writes with a Texas twang. Comments are invited at checklistcharlie.blogspot.com.
1 comment:
Wow. This has gotten me thinking. Which other elected officials or legislation that we rail against is actually God's answer to prayer?
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