Aliens in America: Day 1

Hard Pressed 

 'As aliens, live in reverent fear.' (1 Pet. 1:17) 

Any Christian with a conscience is perplexed by this election year. Have we ever been more polarized as a country? Not in my lifetime.  

The candidate most identified with conservative Christians is a crook and a liar and refuses to take responsibility for anything except his victories (which he reminds us of constantly). Kamala rises from the swamp like an Afro-Asian sphinx––the Democrat’s Queen of Sheba––regal with no pedigree other than she’s not like him. Behind her poise and the soundbites generated by myriad handlers (joy fails to persuade this voter), she remains a mystery. What we do know: Momala, more than any other candidate in history, empowers women to purge their wombs of inconvenience.  

If you, like me, are tempted to endure four years of Kamala’s culture of death just to be free of the unhinged rantings of a man who creates his own unreality (and teaches men so), then breathe. Inhale. Remember: we serve only one King and should be subjects of only one Kingdom, His. In the noise, we can sink into our Source; we can pray with groanings too deep for words (Rom. 8:26), trusting that the Spirit is stealth. He searches out and descends into the world’s chaos.  

It helps to remember that we are aliens here. Though citizens of one country or another, our primary identity as Christians is of pilgrims, those ‘who admit that we are aliens and strangers on this earth…who long for a better country–a heavenly one…Therefore, God is not ashamed to be called their God, for He has prepared a city for them’ (Heb. 11:13-16).  

We will meditate together during these 40 days on St. Peter’s first letter. He wrote to a diverse group of Christians in about 70 AD who lived in a vast area surrounding Rome. Peter refers to that city as ‘Babylon’ (1 Pet. 5:13), a reminder to these Christians and to us that we aren’t home yet. That consoled Peter’s original readers whose new status as Christian aliens put them in conflict with the world around them.     

In the noise of an election, we can exercise a certain detachment. Aliens look for security beyond what a nation can afford them. Though not unmoved by the complexities and stakes at hand, we can pray more than persuade, or be persuaded by, the world.  That frees us to wrestle with God as to how He might best love the world through us. 

‘We are hard-pressed on every side but not crushed, perplexed but not in despair, persecuted but not abandoned, struck down but not destroyed; we always bear in our body the dying of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifest in our body’ (2 Cor. 4:8-10).   

‘Jesus, give us grace to pray in this noisy season. May pressures and fears and heightened experiences of our own alienation from the world converge to quiet our hearts. Teach us to groan in prayer, trusting You to release ‘living water’ where most needed. Restrain the world’s worst; sustain, even prosper, those on whom Your favor rests.’  

‘Jesus, You are the King and we are first citizens of Your Kingdom. Would you free us for You in this election season, not to hide but to shine? You’ve always asked nothing less from Your elect whom You have made ‘strangers in a strange land’ (Ex. 2:22). Here we are, a people who don’t know what to do but who look and listen to our King. 

“Father of all holiness,

guide our hearts to You.

Keep in the light of Your Truth

all those You have freed from the darkness of unbelief.

We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, Your Son.”’

Amen

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