It has been two days since I went to bed realizing that what I suspected was, in fact, coming true. Our country is facing new direction. How do I feel about that? My first line of response Wednesday morning to my wife as we prepared for devotions was that we should take hope in the seed of truth that Obama testifies too when he identifies himself as a "born again Christian". These are his words, not mine. When I pray for him, as we are instructed to do for all of our leaders (Romans 13). I will specifically pray that those seeds will flourish to a place of discernible and demonstrable fruitfulness as He guides our country.
I have read several "dooms day" prognostications regarding Obama's presidency that I want to counter with some hopeful, yet realistic, expectations, based on Obama's promises as a candidate for change.
1. Let's see young people who came out to vote in record numbers continue to be involved on the front lines of social action, volunteering to feed the hungry, build homes for the disabled and clean up the streets of their neighborhoods, with a new interpretation of caring for the earth.
2. Let's pray the now-enabled and energized middle class will be able to keep their houses, pay off their credit cards and demonstrate fiscal responsibility--even if it means contentment with less--in a changing economy.
3. Let's hope the now more highly-taxed upper class won't lose their desire to excel and compete,as a response to being "penalized" for making too much money, and that they will keep their businesses open for profit that employ a huge sector of the American work force.
4. Let's challenge colleges to hold the line on their expenses and costs so that our taxes aren't accelerated to fulfill the pledge to make college more affordable. Let's connect college students with work programs provided by small business men who are mutually benefited. (I worked when I went to college...)
5. Let's agree that every life lost in war is a tragedy and let's pursue the best way to bring our soldiers home without undermining the bloody cost of what already has been done. Let's pursue an orderly withdrawal and an appropriate commitment to the task that remains.
6. Let's see what can be done to control the escalating costs of health care and reduce the fraud and red tape that has paralyzed the system. Rid of the potential for bureaucratic snafus and overpaid middle men, maybe more people can manage affordable health care. Let's be careful not to remove from the health care ranks those already scraping to pay for their care because now they must now underwrite those who pay nothing.
7. Let's make sure we recognize state's rights and not ask the Supreme Court to micro-manage what individual states have sought to manage at home. For example, Californians don't need someone to rule again on whether the will of the people has legal certifiable precedence in affirming traditional marriage.
8. Let's don't be lured into a false sense of security because our preoccupation with a plunging stock market and haunting recession turned our attention for a moment away from the capricious governments of Afghanistan, North Korea and Iran (and there are more), who by their own admission would terrorize this country (and the world, as needed) with the construction of nuclear weapons (like those "not" found in Iraq).
9. Let's don't allow slumping oil prices to cause us to forget the enormous profits of companies like Exon-Mobil that continue to outrage the average vehicle operator. The oil crisis is, unfortunately, what it is manipulated to be by the fickle hand of the suppliers who control its production, and the billionaires who profit from their machinations.
10. Let's dare to dream that Obama can be more than just another presidential candidate with magnetic ideas, an enormous pocketbook, and convenient campaign rhetoric. He has set the agenda. Let's see how he does, and pray that it does not cost too much.
We have been here before.
