Dear Mr. President

Dear President Obama,

Congrats on your victory! It was a close, hard-fought race, and you prevailed. I cannot imagine the grind that is the life of an American presidential candidate. If I had to guess, you are probably very tired and relieved. If I had to guess, you're probably just glad the election is over. I know I would be.

Yet, the rest will not be long (if you're even able to breathe for a day or two). Before you know it, your second term will start, and all eyes will be on you to move "forward," as your campaign stated the goal is. The American economy is still sputtering, with 7.1% of the nation unemployed and 48% considering themselves to be either "struggling" or "suffering," according to Gallup. The national debt is over sixteen trillion dollars, and climbing. Iran is regularly threatening us, and the Middle East continues to be consumed with war.

Our schools are struggling to keep extracurriculars, and college tuition is rising as jobs for these college grads are disappearing. Global temperatures are rising and ice caps are melting. Gay rights, abortion and marijuana use are among the social issues that our nation is currently divided over.

Not only is our nation divided, but our Congress is, as well. The Senate is controlled by your Democratic party, while the House belongs to the Republicans. This election, each part of Congress only fell under a stronger majority. Thus, our legislative branch is likely to be even more gridlocked now than during your first term.

This is just a snapshot of what awaits your second term. The American people want you to "fix" all of this, and more. Sure, you're not super-human. It would be hard for you to do even half of that, much less all of it. Yet, the expectations will be there.

As you look to move forward, we will all either agree or disagree with you and your decisions. You'll do some things I agree with, and you'll do some things I disagree with. Yet, regardless of your decisions or political party or how liberal or conservative you are, I will pray for you. In fact, Mr. President, I'll be praying for you a lot.

I'll be praying for you as you face expectations. I'll pray that you are able to manage the pressure and stress, and I'll pray for you to make decisions based on what needs to happen, and not based on other people's expectations.

I'll be praying for your family. I'll pray that they are also able to handle pressure and expectations. People say some cruel things, so I'll pray that they (and you, as well) are shielded as much as possible from the hateful, awful venom that people will spew.

I'll be praying for you to have wisdom. I'll pray that Ecclesiastes 7:25 would apply, and that you'll "[turn your] heart to know and search out and to seek wisdom and the scheme of things." 

I'll be praying that you are able to rally this nation and lead us to unity with each other. I'll be praying that our nation would be able to look to you as our leader, our face and our voice to the rest of the world.

I'll be praying that you would be honest and truthful, straight-forward and direct with us. We need a leader that will be real with us right now, not a guy that beats around the bush.

Most importantly, I'll be praying for your heart, Mr. President. Ultimately, this next term will end in four years and then you will never be president again. Therefore, I will pray most of all for something that will affect your life now and for eternity. I do not know if you are a Christian; some people say you are, some say you aren't. Therefore, I'll simply pray for your heart to be drawn closer and closer to God's. If you are already a follower of our God, then I pray that you continue growing closer to Him. If you aren't already saved by the grace of God, then I pray that you would be, and that our God would wrap you in His arms, making you into the man of God you need to be.

This country needs you, Mr. President. Since we're both basketball fans, I'll lay it out like this: it's the fourth quarter. The Lakers are trailing to the Heat, 99-101, with 0:50 left. Kobe has the ball. He needs to lead his team down the court and be the leader to get them to overtime, or better, the win. Mr. President, we're losing in the fourth. We need you to be our Kobe, and I pray that you lean on God to give you the strength to do just that.

 

Praying for you,
Bryan Watts
Jesus Follower and American with a keyboard

"First of all, then, I urge that petitions, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for everyone, for kings and all those who are in authority, so that we may lead a tranquil and quiet life in all godliness and dignity."



-1 Timothy 2:1-2, HCSB

How Do You Pray?

FINALLY a day has come that I'm not too busy to write a blog post. Today's post is all about prayer. This a topic that is very dear to my heart, and one that I continue to pursue knowledge in.

Prayer can be tricky. In theory, it's a brilliant thought. Who doesn't want to talk to God? The problem arises for many, myself included, arises when God doesn't talk back. We pray and pray and pray and we receive a dial tone on the other end. This can be frustrating, and lead people to have difficulty in finding a purpose for prayer.

I personally found prayer particularly difficult and troublesome for many years, and still struggle to pray as I should. If everyone as an Achilles heel on the Christian journey, prayer may likely be one of mine. And that is a problem, because prayer is vitally important, and truthfully, indispensable.

I was recently asked by someone "how do you pray?" This question seems simple enough, but it really is a legitimately difficult question. How does one pray? Does it need to be aloud, or internally? Big words or not? Long or short? Must you gather together with others and hold hands, or do you have to kneel beside your bed? The four-letter question I was asked is really a massive, loaded question!

To start, let's look at what Christ says about prayer when He says "you should pray like this."

"9 "Therefore, you should pray like this:

Our Father in heaven,
Your name be honored as holy.
10 Your kingdom come.
Your will be done
on earth as it is in heaven.
11 Give us today our daily bread.
12 And forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.
13 And do not bring us into temptation,
but deliver us from the evil one.
[For Yours is the kingdom and the power
and the glory forever. Amen.]"

-Matthew 6:9-13

OK, that's loaded. There's a lot of information in that prayer. Let's break it down a bit, because really this prayer can be cut into a few sections that are easily applicable to our lives.

V. 9: This prayer starts out by honoring God, coming humbly before Him. We are to acknowledge that God is holy, and because of His holiness, we should worship Him.

V. 10: Now we see Christ praying that God's kingdom would come and that His will would be done. God's kingdom has already come; He runs the universe. Everything from galaxies to atoms are in His kingdom. Instead, we are to pray that His kingdom to come more and more complete as we near the end times, when everything in His kingdom will be made perfect and untarnished again. Praying that His will would be done shows that we are following into His plan for His kingdom, and causes us to humbly follow Him.

V. 11: By asking for our daily bread, Christ means that we ask God for our needs. God will provide for us. Every day we should feel comfortable asking Him to sustain us and provide our needs for us.

V. 12: We ask for forgiveness. We sin constantly, like we are producing sin on an assembly line. We need to confess that sin to God and ask for Him to forgive us. The verse goes on to say that we ask for forgiveness, just like we forgive others. If we expect God to forgive us, it is only logical that we forgive others in the same way.

V. 13: We pray for God to keep us safe from temptation. We sin constantly, like I said above. We need to lean heavily on God to avoid falling deeper and deeper into sin and sinning more and more. Only God can help us overcome Satan and his temptations; we must rely on God to protect us from him.

Tell God He is awesome. Be excited about His plan for the world. Ask for what we need. Ask for forgiveness. Ask for protection. Those are some pretty straight-forward prayers to go after. But is that all?

-Matthew 6:5-7 says not to pray like a show-off. Long, lengthy, "babbling" prayers are not biblical and not what God wants. He wants gut-level honest prayers. Keep that long-winded, hypocritical, show-offy stuff outta here. God isn't impressed when you use big words (unless you naturally talk with big words. Then use them all over your prayers). Instead, we should just pray with whatever is on our hearts, alone if possible.

-The books of Job and Habakkuk have some prayers that are borderline crazy. These two guys got upset with God, and went off on Him. Guess what: you can too. If you feel like God has abandoned you, left you, and forgotten about you, tell Him that. Tell Him you're mad. He can handle it.

-1 Thessalonians 5:17-18 says to pray constantly. Pray all the time. In the bed, in the shower, in the bathroom, in the car, and in your football game. Pray at work, school, and home. Think of it as texting God. You don't usually send long texts, do you? Just quick little prayers like "thank you God," "help me God," or "you're awesome God" are fair game. Short and sweet works.

These are all things that have helped me in my prayer life, and I hope they help you, as well. Let's all try to follow these tips from God on how to talk to God. He wants to hear from us; don't leave Him waiting by the phone.

unChristian, Part One: Hypocritical

I will never forget the time I learned this perspective on Christians, because it broke my heart. I don't remember how it got brought up, I just remember the response. Something was said about Christians, and my co-worker responded with "they are hypocrites." When I asked him to expand, he did. If it hadn't been a good thing to know his feelings truly, I may have wished I didn't ask. And of course, he had a valid point.

Christians are hypocrites, as no one can perfectly "practice what they preach." Some people use this as an excuse to dismiss a non-Christian's or outsider to the faith's opinion about our hypocrisy. However, unChristian reveals something: their opinions matter, largely because they aren't all wrong.

Victoria, a 24-year-old single mom, was one of the literally thousands of people that were interviewed or surveyed to write unChristian. She told them of her story, about how she went to the people at her former church for help. She says,

"Everyone in my church gave me advice about how to raise my son, but a lot of the time they seemed to be reminding me that I have no husband- and besides, most of them were not following their on advice. I made it hard to care what they said." Ouch.

This kind of thing happens all the time. Maybe not on the level of Victoria's, but think about it: how often has someone that is "living in sin" been a visitor at your church or appeared in some other part of your life, and you or someone you know gave them advice? I've done it before. When we are asked to advise people, it's human nature to jump at the opportunity. We enjoy the feeling that we are helping, and we love to share our opinion at any opportunity. I know I do. Unfortunately, we don't always live up the high moral pedestal that we put ourselves on by being Christian advice-givers (I prefer advice-giver to advisor, FYI).

Think about the people Christ had the most issue with when He was here: the religious leaders of the day. His biggest beef with them? They were hypocritical. They liked to make themselves look like big hot-shots, all religious and what not. Yet when it came to their attitudes and actions, they were no different from the rest of the world's population. Christ has called all of His followers to a higher standard. We are to be different from the world (not "better"; We will cover that in Part Six: Judgmental).

"1b Be on your guard against the yeast of the Pharisees [religious leaders], which is hypocrisy. 2 There is nothing covered that won't be uncovered, nothing hidden that won't be made known. 3 Therefore whatever you have said in the dark will be heard in the light, and what you have whispered in an ear in private rooms will be proclaimed on the housetops." -Luke 12:1b-3, HCSB

As unChristian's research showed, though, that the root of our hypocrisy isn't how we go about life, however. It's coming from how we portray what being a Christian is all about. The general perception is that Christianity is a religion of rules and regulations, and that we do not live up to our "holy" rule set. Looking at Christianity like that, it's no surprise that we give off a hypocritical vibe! Anyone who ends up seeming as a "holy" person, be it intentional or not, will inevitably fail at some point.

The challenge is for Christians to shed this "holy" and "rule-bound" perception we give off, and there is only one way to really do that: be real with people. We, of course, must try to live our lives with integrity and purity. Those things are of much importance, and I do not mean to belittle them. The fact is, though, that we will screw up at them sometimes. But when we do, a new opportunity will arise. We may be given the opportunity to show one of the biggest beauties of the Christian faith: forgiveness of sin.

When we mess up, we can use that as a time to show that while we still mess up, w can be forgiven of our mistakes. Jesus died on the cross to save us from our sins, not to make us sinless. We are still going to sin, and when are transparent and honest about that fact, people will look at us in a much better light. Think about it: don't you prefer when someone is open and honest with you instead of when someone is fake and two-sided? It's logical, and its easy. No longer do we worry about a facade that we must maintain; instead, just admit to your mistakes. I guarantee that you will receive more respect.

Of course, there's times to use caution. If your transparency causes someone to stumble or be tempted, that's not good. Too much transparency can also lead to glorifying sin, too, which is completely opposite to what our goal should be. Glorifying in Jesus's conquer of sin is far better. Finally, one must remember to try to live their life as closely to Christ's as we can; our mission is to be like Christ, and he was perfectly pure and sinless. We must aspire to be the same, but be willing to admit when we fall short.

This week, I challenge you to give this a try. Take your "holy mask" off. Just be straight and honest with people, and see if they take you in a separate light. When they are discussing a problem in their life, don't be afraid to admit that you mess up, too. It's a tragic human flaw, and it is one that we all have. Don't be fake and try to hide it.

As always, I am dying to read your comments and emails- so hit me up. Comment below or email me at thefreedbug@aol.com. Thanks for reading, and remember: love God, love people. Not a whole lot else matters.