It's official. We have the most diverse slate of presidential/vice-presidential candidates in the history of our nation. 2 white men, an African-American man, and a white woman. We don't even have to mention the difference in their ages!
Last night, I watched Senator Barak Obama's speech as he accepted the Democratic Party's nomination for President of the United States; when John McCain makes his speech, I'll watch it, too.
If you ask me, "doing your homework" and truly listening to and researching the truth about the candidates is the only responsible (not to mention faithful) way to decide whom God is raising up to lead this great nation of ours into the future. I believe that God does indeed have a will for our election, but we cannot trust one party's spin, or another's, or political pundits on our favorite news outlet, to tell us truly what God's will is. That's our job as Christians in community.
I, for one, don't want society telling me how to vote or how to be Christian; I want to discern that within the Body of Christ, as we listen together for the voice of God to lead us. I want to spend time in prayer and significant discernment before I cast my vote. Only then can I be confident that I am seeking God's will for our country. Of course, pastors and churches cannot tell their members how to vote. We can, however, covenant with one another to pray and to be responsible in our approach to the general election.
But I digress.
What I wanted to say today is how much we have to celebrate...how amazing it is that God has worked such a mighty work in our nation in under 50 years, that the faith-filled "dream" of Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. (which I believe is also God's dream for all peoples) could be realized enough
that a man who would very likely have been a slave in our nation 150 years ago is now the presidential nominee for of one of our two main political parties,
and that a woman who would not have been able to vote 90 years ago is the Vice-Presidential candidate of the more "conservative" of the two parties.
The past 24 hours have been monumental in the history of our nation, regardless of who you believe should be the next president, something to celebrate and give thanks to God for. It is something that means that
God is not through leading our nation into realizing the divine dream...the Lord is not finished with any of us yet. God has a future with hope in store for us.
Praise the Lord for that!
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