Fear

It will cause you to screw up

Originally posted in 2018.

I have three allegiances: God, country, and family. God is primary over the others. I trust in the existence, sovereignty, grace and love of God embodied in His son, Jesus the Christ. This trust must be fed daily and, sometimes, minute by minute. It is necessary maintenance against one of the biggest weapons in the arsenal of the Enemy: fear.

I’ve fallen down in the area of trusting God many times. But another trait of God’s is His endless mercy.

One area in which I allowed fear to rule was when Barack Obama was president and I’m far from alone in that. He was who we thought he was and the turmoil stoked by many of the actions perpetrated by his administration proved it, as we are seeing currently.

One thing unchecked fear does is that it causes one to become immobile; that happened with me. However, it also causes us to act rashly and recklessly.

That seems to have happened with the agencies of the executive branch of government during the Obama Administration. They so greatly feared a Trump presidency that they were ready to do anything to prevent it, and failing that, to hobble it. I suspect that these entities had similar plans for Ted Cruz and for Rand Paul, ready for activation had either become the GOP presidential nominee, but I don’t think that there was a plan for any of the other GOP hopefuls. Why not?

Because Trump, Cruz, and Paul stoked fear in the Democrat Party leadership.

Unchecked fear clouds perspective. It makes people blind. Donald Trump is president [sic] and, had there been no conspiracy to prevent his presidency, the Democrats could be opposing him with honor right now and without the aroma of corruption stinking up their every word and deed. And why did these entities fear Donald Trump? I mean it’s not as if most of them aren’t still collecting their salaries or retirement benefits. And no one is in jail, nor will they be, as I predicted. I guess they learned these salient lessons from Rathergate.

Crime after crime comes out – daily at this point. The end game: most will resign, write $$$-advanced memoirs and hit the well-compensated lecture circuit. The band will play on.

I'm done with being afraid of these people, though.

And what is with those who are still Never-Trump, especially the Christians among them? I contend that it is unchecked fear as well. Trump worshipers? Them, as well. You see, if you don’t trust God, you will overestimate the power of man, of individuals. I did that with Obama and both Never-Trump and Trump worshipers are still doing it. Trump worshipers are composed of the group to which I belonged -- those who feared the Obama Administration – and who did not learn anything from the existence of Obama-worshipers and screeched at the slightest criticism of Donald Trump.

As for those who remain Never-Trump, there are two types, but the one I will focus on here are those who are Christians and who oppose him because of who he is.

We all know the man’s persona and have for decades. I didn’t like him, and I still can’t say that I like the person, Donald Trump, now. Is he a Christian? I don’t know and what I greatly disliked about him, during the campaign, was his pandering to Christians – and I said as much. For that and a few other utterances during the campaign, he still gets a skeptical eye from me, even though I voted for him. [Ed. note: twice.]

And, guess what? That is how we are supposed to look at every person in elected office, even if we helped put him/her there. We are not supposed to be looking at the times in which he may have violated our personal moral codes before he was in office and we are not supposed to care about how “presidential” his personality is. What does that even mean, really?

Does he follow or ignore the US Constitution? Does help the security and economy of the nation? Does he keep or ignore his political promises? There are other standards, of course, but those are the overarching measurement metrics by which to evaluate a president.

He is not a deity, a religious leader, our buddy, our spouse, or our daddy.

By the way, I would vote for a non-Christian if he/she is upfront about it when asked, though I would have many reservations about voting for a Muslim.

Where Obama/Trump-haters and Obama/Trump worshipers err: they elevate presidents to the level of God or to even to the level of that leader of fallen angels named Lucifer. In both, they – we – demonstrate our lack of faith in God. We demonstrate our fear.

Whether you like or hate President Trump, or are Trump-neutral, he does not have the ability to destroy this country any more than President Obama. And, though I believe that there are hidden earthly forces who have this country's cohesiveness in its sites, I don't believe they can touch us either, not as long as there are enough people praying for this nation and trusting in God.