My Plan

I just looked at the Rasmussen polls. Obama has a 53% disapproval rating. Perhaps there is hope for America after all.

Perry Stone thinks so. I received a copy of the latest Voice of Evangelism magazine, and he thinks the righteous remnant in the US is big enough to motivate God to spare us.

I’m not so sure. God’s judgment tends to work like the delivery of a baby. You get pain and rest, alternating. Eventually, the big bomb drops, or God chooses to spare the people, as he did in the book of Jonah. Here’s what I suspect: sometimes God shakes nations up temporarily so the righteous will get it together and be prepared when the big collapse comes.

Christians all over the US are frantically preparing for hard times. Others are saying, “This is AMERICA. We are the MASTER RACE. We are TOO BIG TO FAIL.” They think we generated our own prosperity and security, because we’re superior to other human beings. They don’t attribute our blessings to God.

Maybe the US will be okay. Or maybe God-fearing people who are preparing will be okay, and many of the rest of us will live in tent Obamatowns. God spares nations, but as far as I know, he only does it when the hearts of the people change, in significant numbers. People don’t seem to have changed much since 2007.

Stone is highly critical of Obama, as he should be. Obama personifies pride, he is the furthest thing from gracious or grateful, his positions on moral issues are disgusting, and he is not good to the Jews, except for the self-hating Jews he employs. Stone is taking chances with his tax-exempt status by criticizing our disappointing secular messiah, but I don’t see how any man of God can keep silent when someone this odd is leading the country.

I don’t understand why a preacher can’t criticize a politician. That seems idiotic to me. Obama advocates allowing newborn babies to die from deliberate neglect. He believes partial-birth abortion, which is unquestionably murder, is fine and dandy. He wants to use our tax dollars to pay for abortion. He wants to slash our religious tax deductions. He believes Israel–the only civilized nation in the Middle East–has been spoiled, and that we need to be “even-handed” with the neighboring barbarians who are plotting to steal the Jewish homeland and kill as many Jews as possible.

Obama can attack the church and its values all day without fear. Why can’t a pastor stand up and tell his congregants Obama is a problem? How is that prohibition in any way reflective of the intent of the First Amendment?

Pharaoh was a politician. So was Herod. So was Hitler. So is Castro. A politician can be an enemy of God. Why shouldn’t God’s servants be allowed to fight back?

This will be an interesting week for me. I’ve decided to have five days of prayer, today through Friday. I want to set aside a certain amount of time every afternoon, to go after some persistent problems. A couple involve me directly. The rest involve people around me.

I love listening to Perry Stone’s father, Fred Stone. I got myself a CD of a conversation between the two of them, and they talked about the power of setting time aside for concentrated prayer. They both said there were times when they had secluded themselves to “pray through” problems. You go off by yourself and get down to business, and maybe forty minutes later, you feel you have found God’s face and gotten the help you needed. I think it’s a great thing to do. The things that happen in the physical world are only reflections of foundations that have been laid in the spiritual world. They are the tip of the iceberg. If you want to get rid of an iceberg, you don’t chip at the top. You have to do something about the part below the waterline.

Fred Stone said there are times in prayer when you push and plead, and finally, “Your faith tells you you’ve got it.” He has been at this for 60 years, so I take his word for it when he says this is the way to go. He also said that when you fast, it’s not always necessary to proclaim a period in advance and then stick to it. Apparently, it’s possible to get your answer during the first day of a three-day fast. He said he had had this kind of thing happen to him. You fast until you get your result, and then you quit. I think that makes sense. Daniel fasted for 21 days, but I don’t think the Bible says he proclaimed a 21-day fast, in advance. The story suggests the fast lasted 21 days because that was how long it took the angel to arrive. I suppose the fast would have been shorter, had the angel arrived sooner.

I hope this will be a breakthrough week. I’m sure it will. The more I progress, the more often I feel God’s presence and his confirmation that he will help me. I keep having experiences where the Holy Spirit just descends out of nowhere, for no apparent reason. It happened to me in the drugstore last month, while I was walking by the refrigerated beverage cases. I could not figure it out. I didn’t know what to do with it. I noticed two college students walking in front of me, speaking in Arabic. I decided to pray for them, since they happened to be handy.

I used to look forward to feeling God’s presence at church, and I still do, but now he shows up regardless of where I am, and I no longer see church as the primary place to feel his power. Fine with me. My church is 18 miles away!

Aside from convenience, there is such a thing as becoming addicted to God’s presence. You miss it when you get distracted for a few hours. You want it back, badly. Talk about a gift. Anything you’re addicted to will be a major part of your life. You will get good at anything you do a lot, so if you’re inclined to do something because of a craving, and that thing is beneficial, you’re very, very lucky.

Sure beats the typical American addiction, which is television. An American who doesn’t run the TV five hours a day is a freak. Imagine what your life would be like if you prayed and studied five hours a day.

It’s very sad that we watch the tube so much. By the time you die, you may have spent twenty years watching strangers play make-believe. That’s what TV is. Play-acting. No more important or real than a three-year-old running around with a towel pinned to his collar, claiming to be Superman. Nice use of your time. A typical person, faced with imminent death, would give anything to postpone it. And then what would most of them do with the added years? TV and the Internet. We are strange creatures.

I will get started on my five-day plan later on today.