Thoughts on the Morning After - Part I

Ironically, as a McCain supporter I was more depressed when I woke up yesterday on Election Day morning than I am on this morning after. Christians prayed fervently for God’s will in this election, and God answered with a win for Barack Obama. We may disagree on whether this represents mercy or judgment on our nation, but regardless, Obama will be our next president. How we Christians deal with this reality may be a test from God to see where our hearts really lie. Will we react like one more angry interest group whose agenda has been thwarted by our political enemy, or will we humble ourselves under God’s sovereign hand, in a spirit of repentance for our own sins and failures, and seek him for more effective and loving ways to be salt and light, in truth and grace, for our nation?

As I wrote earlier in the week, a great place to start would be on our knees on this Wednesday morning. After that, we might try looking for the silver lining in what we may consider the dark cloud of the Obama win. Here are a few thoughts:

1. Let’s start with the obvious: America has just elected her first African-American president. If we can find little else to celebrate in an Obama victory, we can all certainly rejoice in this colossal milestone for our country. I grew up in the segregated South and still vividly remember the “Orangeburg Massacre” in my town, a race riot that ended in the police killing of three black college students, all because a couple of young black men dared to ask for service at the snack bar in the local bowling alley. How far we have come in forty years! And who would have thought then that the state whose borders held the capital of the Confederacy would go blue for Barack Obama in 2008? This is a victory for America and for humanity.

2. Those who use the accusation of racism to excuse every personal or political failure, or to not even try to achieve in life, no longer have that excuse. The perceived barrier has been broken. Don Imus said yesterday that, although he voted for McCain, he would be happy for an Obama win because it would give black children across America the ability to dream, perhaps for the first time, that they really can be anything they want to be, even president of the United States. What people believe about themselves has a far greater impact on their lives than government entitlements ever could.

3. The reality of numbers 1 and 2 above make a far better case for American blacks in this land opportunity than all the liberal carping about the hopeless socio-economic situation of blacks and others. Ironically, Obama’s very success begins to undermine the presuppositions supporting wealth redistribution and entitlement programs. Sometimes unintended consequences are positive.

4. It may be hard to overestimate the hope the historic Obama victory brings to American citizens, even those of us who oppose his policies, in this time of economic doom saying. I’ll wager his election will do more for the markets than that bailout boondoggle.

Some believers will, unfortunately, refuse to see any positive implications of an Obama presidency and bitterly focus on the disasters that could result. Those who do, give in to fear, which never serves us well, and they forget that God is still on his throne.