Monthly Column

“May all kings fall down before him, all nations serve him!” Psalm 72:11

Dear Members and Friends of Prince of Peace,

Having taken a trip this summer out to the east coast, I was reminded of how my perspective of travel within the continental US has changed since when I was a boy. It has changed because of the time I spent back-packing alone in Alaska and thinking: “If I fall, if a stumble and hurt myself, I probably will not be rescued.” It has changed because I fell asleep on a train in Germany, and missed by stop, and had no knowledge of German, and realized it would be helpful if I could actually talk to someone about how to get back to where I needed to go. It has changed because when I was in Africa, in a hotel, at night, staring at the ceiling, during a power outage, I began to wonder if the transportation I had taken to get me there would be sufficient to return me safely to Minnesota!

My point? Wherever we travel in the US there are emergencies services relatively close at hand. Wherever we travel in the US we can find someone that speaks English. Wherever we travel in the US we can reasonably depend on basic services like electricity, and water. It is not that we cannot get stranded here, somewhere, miles from nowhere. We can! (And have!) It is just that when we travel here, we are relatively certain, that so much of what we need for safe travel will be available to us.

Added to that is the fact that as Christians, we can be certain that our Father in heaven really is overseeing our travels. He is the one who ultimately guards and guides and keeps us, whether we are traveling here or some other place in the world. God is the one who sees us safely from one place to another throughout our lives, whether we are hiking through a mountain range in Alaska or walking down a street in Nigeria.

Now what goes for travel, also goes for politics. It is very easy to forget, during any election cycle, that the One who oversees the world is not some specific elected person, a political party, or some sort of political or economic philosophy. It is in fact God. More specifically: Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

It is Jesus who has been given all authority in heaven and on earth, and so ultimately, He is the One who is overseeing the “travels” through time not only of the United States, but also every other country in world. Jesus received this authority by His suffering, death and resurrection—for us!

So it is the One who overcame sin and death and rose again to life who oversees not only our death, but also our life, every single day. Not only as individuals, but as states and countries as well.