The Understanding to Know

SCRIPTURE:  This is what the Lord says: “Let not the wise boast of their wisdom or the strong boast of their strength or the rich boast of their riches, but let the one who boasts boast about this: that they have the understanding to know me, that I am the Lord, who exercises kindness, justice and righteousness on earth, for in these I delight,” declares the Lord. Jeremiah 9:23-24 NIV

QUOTE: We are of the people, we are chosen by the people to see that no permanent structure of government ever encroaches on the people’s freedom or assumes a power beyond that which has freely been granted to us by the people. We stand between the taxpayer and the tax spender.

Now, it is inconceivable to me that anyone could accept this delegated authority without asking God’s help. And I pray, that we of the legislature and the administration can be granted the wisdom and the strength beyond our own limited powers. That with divine guidance we can avoid easy expedience. That we can work to build a state where liberty under law and justice can triumph, where compassion can govern and wherein the people can participate and prosper because of their government and not in spite of it.

Governor Ronald Reagan, 1967 https://www.reaganlibrary.gov/archives/speech/january-5-1967-inaugural-address-public-ceremony

THOUGHT: Does it surprise you that less than 60 years ago, the governor of California was asking God’s help, acknowledging divine guidance, and asking for wisdom and strength beyond “our own limited powers,” for himself and his administration?

In fact, these words of Governor Reagan don’t merely give God a polite nod, they pointedly, purposefully expand God’s power to “help,” “guide,” grant “wisdom and strength,” while recalling limits to human and government power. Words like “encroaches,” or “assumes a power beyond,” or “liberty under law and justice,” or “prosper because of their government and not in spite of it” show that Reagan had the understanding to know God, to desire to govern with God’s own kindness, justice and righteousness.

This is the way our government was created to work, but such humility has become hubris today among many of our elected leaders, governing by fiat because they are certain they know what is better for us than we do. The marketplace of ideas, particularly ideas that dissent from the approved narrative of big government have been shut down in collusion between government and social media, which amounts to a press that is no longer free – a direct contradiction of the Constitution. We have a country without southern borders, chaos in elections, fearmongering in matters of climate, murder and tent cities in our metropolitan areas, doctors who cannot treat according to their wisdom and experience, children subjected to sexualization and bigotry in public schools, and suppression of the truth in all of the above.

It all has to start with the understanding to know God. Not even an understanding about God will suffice. We must know him; that is what prepares us to offer the same kind of kindness, justice and righteousness on earth that he delights in.

PRAYER: Oh God, another of your prophets, Hosea, said “a people without understanding shall come to ruin (4:14).” Grant us as a people the understanding where everything good starts. The understanding to know you.