Dear Duchess,

Regarding your last post:

Faith, pure and simple faith.  God has not given us a spirit of fear but of
sound mind, etc., etc.
I find that I can no longer vote in fear which I have done in the past two
elections; that I have to have trust in the Lord, to do as I believe He is
leading me and believe in faith.  I believe if the "sleeping giant" would
wake up and do what is right, it would shake them up so, but alas, the
sleeping giant sleeps on......So in answer to your question, Faith.  Faith
that God can still do miracles and we do have to accept second best, we can
accept the best if we would just be faithful and obedient.

I applaud your faith. Yes, God has not given us a spirit of fear and He does miracles daily. He also wants us to reason together with the sound mind He gave us. Here's my stab at it:

First, a little background -

I am an immigrant. At four years old, I remember seeing the Statue of Liberty for the first time and dolphins skipping in the waves along side the ship approaching my new home. Some years later, I remember hiding under a desk at school - practicing - in case an atom bomb fell on my head. Hope and fear, separated by only a few years in the life of a child.

But, I remember faith, also - my family's, in leaving behind war-torn Europe because they had faith that only America would protect their child from more danger. Their faith sustained me years later as my life see-sawed between hope and fear while my friends were dying in Vietnam and I, a military wife with a young child of my own, found myself back in Europe as the Czechoslovakian crises loomed, and again, when this child grew and became a soldier during 'Desert Storm'.

From this perspective, I reason:

What is faith if not hope and fear evolving into trust that there is an Almighty God directing the affairs of men who will, in the end, make all things right? How comforting when I realized that He knows me. Now, I am obligated to meet His expectations and one of His directives was 'occupy until I come'.

I, we, must occupy. This term 'occupy' has a military connotation, does it not? So, what do we occupy - the 2'x2' space we sit on, with hands folded, exercising faith while evil unfolds its ugly wings around us? Are we to act like monks in Tibet contemplating nirvana?  Hardly. Are we to take unreasonable actions even when they superficially seem right and wait for God to miraculously bring them to fruition? I hope not. This is a knee-jerk reaction to reason. I think its obvious from the Scriptures and from history that we must 'occupy' in the context of the geopolitical world we find ourselves in, support a leader who has the most reasonable chance to enact into law our most prioritized issues, and have faith that God will use imperfect people for His own ends. Let us reason together and be careful not to hinder Him in our efforts to prove ourselves righteous. God does not ask for blind faith.

Blessings

Marie Komar