A Plea for Restraint

“Lord God All-Powerful, you are and you were, and we thank you. You used your great power and started ruling.” Revelation 11:17

Who is God to me? Is He just someone I refer to, hoping He will rubber stamp my preconceived notions? My heart breaks over so many followers of Jesus invoking His name to lobby for personal interest. I am baffled over the pettiness and ill will toward people who disagree with us. We don’t inquire of their personal faith, nor their own walk with God; No, they support gun control, they want health care reform, and suddenly, they can’t be followers. I have purposely left out two of the most volatile push-button issues because a strong Biblical case can be made for a particular opinion or stand on them.


But, wanting to find ways to make it more difficult for outlaws to possess firearms, to want to limit the sort of firearms and the number of rounds in a magazine; make a statement about these issues and many conservative Christians act as if you have denied Christ! How can we even allow our hearts to go to such extremes? I make no assumption about those who want no limits on gun purchases; I do not link that position to their faith in Christ. So, why, oh why, does it go the other way? It breaks my heart.

I’ve heard Christians call people dummies who think a sensible bit of gun control is worthwhile. I’ve heard them even suggest they are ungodly. Christians have suggested that others (including their fellow believers) are not true citizens. I don’t care one whit if someone disagrees with me about gun control, but I am deeply disheartened, that we are judging fellow brothers and sisters over this issue!

And the same goes for suggesting a bit of universal healthcare deserves discussion. Again, it pains me deeply when Christian friends go on the attack, accusing people who want to consider the current proposals of being communist, socialist, or, strangely enough, going to the Nazi road. It scares me when we who are followers of Christ can use such dark and ugly language about other believers.

Maybe we should read Revelation all over again, not to determine when Jesus is returning, but to fill us with a bit of humility. “Lord God All-Powerful”. You alone have all power, God. You are the One I bow before. I submit my opinions to You. And, as I study the ways of Your Son, Jesus Christ, help me to yield not only my sins, but my opinions; help me to ask, not only for forgiveness, but for mercy from within; help me to believe, not only that You have died for me, but that Your great power has redeemed all the earth; help me to love, not only the God who loved me first, but also every other bit of humanity who You also loved as deeply as you love me.

“You are, and You were, and we thank You.” Ages before I existed, before my father met my mother in high school, before his father bought and ran a furniture store in Tulsa, Oklahoma, before his father lived in Missouri Ozarks, before his father changed his name from Philip Rhine to Mr. Phillips because of prejudice against Germans during WW1, long before this country called America was populated by Anglo Saxons, long before Britain was an empire, Rome rose and fell, the Greeks philosophized and the Persians conquered, long before man began to write, fashion the wheel or learn to use fire, before all, You were! And as far back as I can think, far beyond our baby-life human history, past the sudden silence of this universe when space was not even space, all was vacuum, and quiet. Before all of that, You were! As far back as I can think, You exist that far forward forever as well.

In light of Your great power, and recognizing Your eternity, I say only “Thank You.” You have delivered your people when enslaved by an evil Pharaoh, yet You also included Egypt in prophesies about all nations who will worship You in the end. You came in Christ, spoke of a kingdom full of poor, meek, righteous, peaceful men and women who learn to live not by the sword, but by the Spirit. When you were illegally arrested in the middle of the night, you went peacefully. And when one of your disciples lopped off a participant’s ear, You stopped everything, and healed it with stern words to Peter, “He who lives by the sword will die by it.”

To demonstrate the God You are, instead of destroying us when we abused Your Son, beat His back bloody and mocked Him, spat upon Him and belittled Him; instead of calling a Legion of Angels, You Father, did not intervene. Instead, demonstrating the God You are, Jesus, full of purpose, continued down the dark alley toward His death. He suffered with hardly a word, and, after hanging in agony, cried out, “Father, forgive them, for they don’t know what they are doing.”

 You, who are and were, we thank You! How can we utter any greater prayer: “Thank You!” And, in the midst of our own personal pain, or when the world is full of suffering, or even when Christians endure the horrors of persecution, we can still say, “You have taken your great power and started ruling.” It is that knowledge that stops me dead cold every time I think another believer should have the same opinions as myself. Not only that, it stops me from judging their intelligence, their faith, their common sense, or their morality based on peripherals or politics.

Help us, Oh Father God. Set us free from ourselves. May our tongues be silenced in Your presence, Lord God All-Powerful. May our judgments be consumed by the flames of Your grace. May we refuse ever again to challenge someone’s faith because their politics are not the same as mine.  May I humbly acknowledge actions that imply others are less intelligent because they do not agree with me. May I subject my own darkness to Your light. Help me subject my own lack of love to the wonders of Your mercy. Let me, Oh Please, Father of All, be more and more like Your Son.

You indeed have taken your power and have started ruling. Now, rule anew the depths of this soul so easily swayed by the attractions of this earth’s battles and debates.