Now What?

 A few hours ago Joe Biden and Kamala Harris were projected as the winners of the 2020 Presidential Election.  Barring a miracle or nightmare (pending your perspective), Joe Biden will be inaugurated President of the United State of America on January 20, 2021.  

(If things change after this post is published you are more than welcome to repost it and make fun of me for being wrong)

What now?  What do we do now?  

First, we continue to pray for President Trump.  He is now a lame duck with some major fires on his agenda.  COVID-19 is raging here and advancements in the fight against it are needed in the next few months.  Our neighbors are still dealing with unemployment and underemployment.  Our enemies abroad and at home still want to do us harm.  Lame duck or not, Donald Trump needs to succeed in doing his job.

Second, pray for a peaceful transition.  Pray that a gracious victory and a gracious defeat occur.  Pray that the three men and one woman in this race lead by example.  Let us not continue the anger and fear filled election style interactions.  Let us be gracious people who either accept our preferred candidate's defeat or victory with the dignity those who had a different preferred candidate may or not deserve.

Thirdly, we pray for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.  The job of President and Vice President is large.  The job is one I would never want.  Those who hold the office usually age at an accelerated rate from the stress of the job.  Mr. Biden and Ms. Harris need wisdom, courage, restraint and energy to do a good job for this nation.  Pray they surround themselves with people that will challenge and enable them to be what we need them to be.  They have just acquired jobs for which no one is fully qualified to have.

Lastly, let us pray that we can be less political and more neighborly over the next four years.  It seems one side never stopped celebrating the last outcome and running for the next election and the other side never stopped rueing the last outcome and running for the next one.  It is my belief that we need to take a deep breath as a people.  We need to become more interested in our neighborhood and our town than in the occupant of the White House.  Pray we can have a stretch of time in which we can unplug from the temporal politics and plug more fully into the eternal Kingdom by simply "loving the Lord with all our hearts, souls, minds and strength and loving our neighbor as ourself."

Some of you are thrilled today and others of you are frustrated.  To the excited, congratulations.  To the frustrated, sorry.  

Now let us heal, let us pray and let us react to the news in a God-honoring way today.