I encountered a discussion the other day that got me to thinking. I am very well aware of the followers I have and am likely going to lose some of those with this post. I just hope that before you hit the “unsubscribe” button, you will at least take a deeper look into yourself and think about things a little more. I thought about not posting, for fear of losing followers, but I feel that I was given the opportunity to be on TV, not just to be on TV and get “famous”, but to reach out to the world and do good. Well, here goes…
The statements that started the conversation: When Trump was elected: “Praise God who put Trump in office – God chooses our leaders” When Biden was elected: “I will pray to God that our country will survive this, the devil is in our country again.” Not only are these really bold statements in general, but they are deeply contradictory to each other. How can God be in control of one election and not the next one? If God is in control, He’s always in control, right?
Now, I was admittedly upset when Trump was elected – not because he was a republican either, but I won’t get into why. Through the last four years, I’ve slowly come out of my shock and understand that God does everything for a reason. I can’t tell you why He takes babies and children away, or allows fatal wars to wage for decades, and I can’t tell you why He chose Trump to be our leader for four years either, but I have a theory.
Since the beginning of history, we have changed the way we treat each other as we have become a more densely populated species. At first it was all “eye for an eye” and “love your family and hate your enemies,” then about 2000 years ago, some pretty fantastic guy came along and said “no, love your neighbors AND your enemies.” Since then, we have been constantly redefining how we treat each other. We started with slaves that owed money, then we went to slaves that dared occupy their own land when we decided we wanted it, then we went to slaves that we went out and sought from other countries.
Finally, enough people decided that having slaves is bad. So, we fought a war to end slavery. Then we were like “okay, they’re not slaves, but they have far more melanin than me and are therefore inferior in every way.” Another wave of thought came declaring, “no, they just have more melanin and were never given a fair chance after they were freed, but they are human and should be treated as such” (BTW, this was ONLY about 60 years ago, not centuries). Then everyone (well, the privileged ones anyway) thought they were PRETTY good people and that a utopian society had been achieved.
Hitler was, at one time, the leader of Germany. Yes, I suppose God DID put him there if we are sticking with my line of thinking, but I don’t think it was to kill off a bunch of people directly. I think our entire span of history, we have been going through cycles of complacency and awakening. I’m not (by any means) a historian, but I think Hitler’s reign of terror really drove home the idea that if we are dealt a difficult enough time and a hated/feared enough group of people to blame, we can not only be persuaded into abandoning our morals, but we can be convinced that it was right and just to abandon them.
After Hitler, we were reawakened to the harsh realities of our human nature. We would never be like that again. We had a common enemy, he was defeated and we will never succumb to that again. We were more aware of the Jewish religion and were more careful to be nice and inclusive to those of other religions. We continued to improve our humanity, better and better every decade – slow to us, but change is slow. Then, I think we got complacent again. We (well, at least, me as a privileged white person) thought that every one was almost equally treated, the vast majority of people had love and inclusion in their hearts, and that we were almost there.
Then, something changed. Trump was elected. ***Disclaimer before you get mad, I completely understand that numerous, if not the majority of Trump supporters are good people who just believe that he was going to/did change the country for the better*** We can differ all day on policies and how the country should be run, and that’s fine! That’s how changes for the better are made, but what Trump did, whether or not intentionally, was to bring to light some of the people with evil and hate in their hearts. Trump acted as a divisive sieve to filter out all the degrees of anger on both sides. His words spurned fear, hatred, blame on the other side, and he even seeded doubt that facts weren’t facts that caused a deep paranoia among his followers. He got out on a social platform and spewed rhetoric and propaganda that struck fear in the hearts of some of his followers and made the other side hate his followers even more. Some people blame the media for dividing us, but with Trump standing on his own personal propaganda machine (twitter), we didn’t need the media to know just how scheming and deceitful he could be all on his own.
Personally, I’ve learned so much from these past four years. I’ve learned that I have been complacent until this period, I have falsely believed that racism and xenophobia were all but extinguished. Turns out we have a lot more work to do. Trump was ordained by God. Does that mean he’s a saint? No. But, I believe God places trials on us to make us realize areas where we need to improve to better do His work and spread His word and strive toward betterment as a people. I believe He wants us to stop. Think. Consider the views of the “other side” and communicate. Hopefully this will have been an awakening and we will grow toward the light instead of crawling back into the darkness.
