Senseless and foolish
by Pastor Reid Matthias
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Among all the wise leaders of the nations and in all their kingdoms, there is no-one like you. They are all senseless and foolish (Jeremiah 10:7b,8a).
It’s interesting to watch how elections take place. For weeks (or months) preceding the actual voting, the country is subjected to a tsunami of advertising telling us whom to vote for. The fascinating part is this: each party attempts to describe how senseless and foolish the others are.
To be fair, this happens everywhere in the world. We debate by tearing down rather than dialoguing, and we campaign by destroying character rather than leading by serving.
Politicians have a difficult calling. They are tasked to lead a diverse mob of people with extraordinarily different priorities to a particular indistinct future. But if we’ve learned anything about the contemporary world of politics, nothing has changed from the ancient world.
We’re still infatuated with idols.
The foolishness of nations listening to their wooden idols of comfort, wealth, power, privilege and the senseless pandering to misguided ideas has brought us to an immense fork in the road. Follow the narrow path back towards ‘the Lord [who] is the true God; he is the living God, the eternal King’ (verse 10a), or continue on the highway to destruction.
Fortunately, our God is great, and his name is mighty in power. He is full of mercy and justice, and he has sent his Son, Jesus, to speak through the Spirit, guiding us back on the path.
For God is good and wise and seeks the best for his people. And he desires that the nations of the world would look to him rather than idols.
I pray that we can find a way to support our leaders to look to God’s holy way and bring us back to the path of life that God can show us.
Lord Jesus, Light of the World, reveal your wisdom and hope that we might see your power in my life and in the world around me. Amen.
Reid Matthias is the school pastor at St Andrews Lutheran College in Tallebudgera, Queensland. Reid is married to Christine, who is part of the Grow Ministries team. Together, they have raised three incredible daughters, Elsa, Josephine and Greta. Dedicated to the written word, Reid has recently published his fourth novel, Blank Spaces, maintains the blog ireid.blogspot.com and regularly contributes to The Lutheran magazine.
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