I’m heading to the polls today, like many of you. Truly, I feel like I’m carrying a two-ton weight on my back as I go, a burden of frustration and disheartened sadness that I’ve never before carried into an election.

I know that whomever sits in the oval is not my savior. I fully understand that God is in control, so that is not the issue. Instead, it’s the fact that we are falling apart as a nation. We are giving up any semblance of decorum, decency, integrity, or character in favor of empty promises and vulgar narcissism, and I don’t just mean in this election cycle. We’ve been doing it little, by little, for a long time, riding on a wave of arrogance that is finally being swept back into the tide.

There is the scantest of threads holding us together, but many of us don’t seem to see it. We continue down that haughty road, as the thread frays a little more each day, and the super power we once were becomes barely fit for comic book fodder. If I were the God of the universe, I think I might be shaking my head about now. It certainly seems to me (and I am nobody in the grand scheme – just a woman throwing thoughts on a page), that we are going the way of Old Testament Israel.

Listen to me, O my people, while I give you stern warnings. O Israel, if you will only listen! You must never worship any other god, nor ever have an idol in your home. For it was I, Jehovah your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt. Only test me! Open your mouth wide and see if I won’t fill it. You will receive every blessing you can use! But no, my people won’t listen. Israel doesn’t want me around. So I am letting them go their blind and stubborn way, living according to their own desires. ~ Psalm 81:8-12 TLB

Like a child who continually disobeys, ignores warning after warning, there comes a time when a parent has to give them over to themselves to suffer the consequences of their actions. Such was the way of Israel, and if we would but WAKE UP, it will be our way, as well.

That same parent, though, wants so much more for their child.

“But oh, that my people would listen to me! Oh, that Israel would follow me, walking in my paths!  How quickly then I would subdue her enemies! How soon my hands would be upon her foes!  Those who hate the Lord would cringe before him; their desolation would last forever.  But he would feed you with the choicest foods. He would satisfy you with honey for the taking.” ~ Psalm 81:13-16 TLB

We could stand to become, once more, a land flowing with honey, could we not?

Take time to pray today. Pray for our childish nation to turn and heed the warnings from a Father ready to bless. Pray for those casting votes today, for those currently in seats of power and for those vying for those seats.

Pray as never before.