{"id":3433,"date":"2022-11-08T17:10:00","date_gmt":"2022-11-08T23:10:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/afriendoftheking.com\/?p=3433"},"modified":"2022-11-12T05:14:48","modified_gmt":"2022-11-12T11:14:48","slug":"midterm-election-2022","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/afriendoftheking.com\/?p=3433","title":{"rendered":"Midterm Election 2022"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"alignleft size-medium\"><a href=\"https:\/\/afriendoftheking.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/9FFE2753-0F06-4376-8451-F9CA40BFF007-scaled.jpeg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" src=\"https:\/\/afriendoftheking.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/9FFE2753-0F06-4376-8451-F9CA40BFF007-300x225.jpeg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-3436\" srcset=\"https:\/\/afriendoftheking.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/9FFE2753-0F06-4376-8451-F9CA40BFF007-300x225.jpeg 300w, https:\/\/afriendoftheking.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/9FFE2753-0F06-4376-8451-F9CA40BFF007-1024x768.jpeg 1024w, https:\/\/afriendoftheking.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/9FFE2753-0F06-4376-8451-F9CA40BFF007-768x576.jpeg 768w, https:\/\/afriendoftheking.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/9FFE2753-0F06-4376-8451-F9CA40BFF007-1536x1152.jpeg 1536w, https:\/\/afriendoftheking.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/9FFE2753-0F06-4376-8451-F9CA40BFF007-2048x1536.jpeg 2048w, https:\/\/afriendoftheking.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/9FFE2753-0F06-4376-8451-F9CA40BFF007-624x468.jpeg 624w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left\">On Election Day, November 8, during her early morning neighborhood walk my wife sent me this quote someone tweeted: &#8220;Before you vote please fill up your car with gas, buy your groceries for the week, take a peek at your retirement account, and look at current government spending.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>What&#8217;s happening at the moment to our economy and way of life is no mystery to those who carefully read their Bibles and have some grasp of history. I would recommend Deuteronomy 28, and Alexander Solzhenitsyn&#8217;s <em>One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich<\/em> as a beginning place. No socialistic, secular-humanist  people have lasted long as a nation. Without God&#8217;s blessings and actions in our individual and corporate lives  we implode, make poor decisions, become easy targets for our enemies, and demonstrate we really do need Him &#8212; unable to rule ourselves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In my upcoming book <em>Puzzling 2020, Connecting the Pieces<\/em> I mention that I don&#8217;t put my hope in the political process or politics. I do think politics are important and touch our lives deeply at times in very personal ways, so I vote and pray for candidates with the best character to win. I encourage my friends to do the same. But my hope is in God, the Rock, the Everlasting One &#8212; the God of history and Ruler of nations.<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"alignright size-medium\"><a href=\"https:\/\/afriendoftheking.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/D3FD3536-4AAA-45B3-BFE2-7058846102E9-scaled.jpeg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" src=\"https:\/\/afriendoftheking.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/D3FD3536-4AAA-45B3-BFE2-7058846102E9-300x225.jpeg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-3437\" srcset=\"https:\/\/afriendoftheking.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/D3FD3536-4AAA-45B3-BFE2-7058846102E9-300x225.jpeg 300w, https:\/\/afriendoftheking.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/D3FD3536-4AAA-45B3-BFE2-7058846102E9-1024x768.jpeg 1024w, https:\/\/afriendoftheking.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/D3FD3536-4AAA-45B3-BFE2-7058846102E9-768x576.jpeg 768w, https:\/\/afriendoftheking.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/D3FD3536-4AAA-45B3-BFE2-7058846102E9-1536x1152.jpeg 1536w, https:\/\/afriendoftheking.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/D3FD3536-4AAA-45B3-BFE2-7058846102E9-2048x1536.jpeg 2048w, https:\/\/afriendoftheking.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/D3FD3536-4AAA-45B3-BFE2-7058846102E9-624x468.jpeg 624w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p>I recall now a favorite quote from Charles Simpson: &#8220;Good men can make a bad system work, but bad men can&#8217;t even make a good system work.&#8221; God is the X factor in making men and women, as well as nations comprised of the same, flourish or perish, for their own benefit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A few relevant Bible verses come to mind: &#8220;Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a disgrace to any people&#8221; (Proverbs 14:34). &#8220;Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord, the people whom He has chosen for His own inheritance&#8221; (Psalm 33:12). And, &#8220;When the righteous increase, the people rejoice, but when a wicked man rules, people groan&#8221; (Proverbs 29:2).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Before leaving you with these thoughts to ponder as fodder for action, I&#8217;ll give a shout out to an excellent book addressing this subject in an insightful way. Its title is <em>Letter to the American Church<\/em> by Eric Metaxas. Our 20\/20 Men&#8217;s Book Club and friendship group is currently reading it. I&#8217;m only 10 pages into this succinct 139-page book and can see it&#8217;s worth the money and time spent reading it already. May God bless you and yours.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\">*******<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;Why are the nations in an uproar and the peoples devising a vain thing? The kings of the earth take their stand and the rulers take counsel together against the Lord and against His Anointed, saying, &#8216;Let us tear their fetters apart and cast away their cords from us!&#8217; He who sits in the heavens laughs, the Lord scoffs at them. Then He will speak to them in His anger and terrify them in His fury, saying, &#8216;But as for Me, I have installed My King upon Zion, My holy mountain&#8217;\u201d (Psalm 2:1-6 NASB).<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"alignleft size-medium\"><a href=\"https:\/\/afriendoftheking.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/46D75161-8C98-49CB-83E0-F5B3E700EA93-scaled.jpeg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" src=\"https:\/\/afriendoftheking.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/46D75161-8C98-49CB-83E0-F5B3E700EA93-300x225.jpeg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-3438\" srcset=\"https:\/\/afriendoftheking.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/46D75161-8C98-49CB-83E0-F5B3E700EA93-300x225.jpeg 300w, https:\/\/afriendoftheking.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/46D75161-8C98-49CB-83E0-F5B3E700EA93-1024x768.jpeg 1024w, https:\/\/afriendoftheking.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/46D75161-8C98-49CB-83E0-F5B3E700EA93-768x576.jpeg 768w, https:\/\/afriendoftheking.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/46D75161-8C98-49CB-83E0-F5B3E700EA93-1536x1152.jpeg 1536w, https:\/\/afriendoftheking.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/46D75161-8C98-49CB-83E0-F5B3E700EA93-2048x1536.jpeg 2048w, https:\/\/afriendoftheking.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/46D75161-8C98-49CB-83E0-F5B3E700EA93-624x468.jpeg 624w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p>&#8220;But where sin abounded, grace abounded much more&#8221; (Romans 5:20b NKJV).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On Election Day, November 8, during her early morning neighborhood walk my wife sent me this quote someone tweeted: &#8220;Before you vote please fill up your car with gas, buy your groceries for the week, take a peek at your retirement account, and look at current government spending.&#8221; What&#8217;s happening at the moment to our [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,13,8,11],"tags":[32,33,68,98,84],"class_list":["post-3433","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-be-a-leader","category-books-worth-a-look","category-the-book-journey","category-understanding-our-times","tag-christian-life","tag-faith","tag-fear","tag-grace","tag-pandemic"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/afriendoftheking.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3433","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/afriendoftheking.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/afriendoftheking.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/afriendoftheking.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/afriendoftheking.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3433"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/afriendoftheking.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3433\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3442,"href":"https:\/\/afriendoftheking.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3433\/revisions\/3442"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/afriendoftheking.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3433"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/afriendoftheking.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3433"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/afriendoftheking.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3433"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}