Last Christmas

I love this time of year for so many reasons, but one of my favorite ones may be hundreds of versions of 'Last Christmas' that I can find on YouTube.  Last year I did something like '34 days of Last Christmas' on Facebook with a new video each day, and looking around I find that I could do the same thing with an entirely new playlist or by limiting my selections to Asian versions or any other way of doing this.

But there still may be no better version than the original Wham! version with George Michael and Andrew Ridgely.  It's not just a great song, but also high comedy in watching the video.  Here are my second-by-second highlights.
0:06 ooooohhhh  aaaaahhhhh ooooohhhheeeeeaaaa, with a beautiful mountain background.
0:22 big wave!  big wave!
0:35 'wait, I could have been with George Michael and I got stuck with this guy?'
0:41 George hugs.  Girlfriend coldly shakes hands.
1:07 So, there are houses with no roads, and you have to walk there?  Geez.
1:12 Twirly guy decorating tree!
1:18 So happy to be putting out plates!
1:28 Dorky guy with dorky smile bringing in firewood tracks in snow.  Thanks, Bill.
1:40 STOP DUMPING SNOW ON THE FLOOR, BILL!
1:52 Whee!  We get to go outside and play!
1:54 Blue steel pose alert!
2:06 Cake on fire!
2:32 Oh, that was cold.  She knows what she's doing looking at him that way.  Which leads to...
2:36 Pouty eyes!
2:43 'Crap, I didn't know shooting this video was going to be an all-day thing.  I am sooooo bored.'
2:58 FLASHBACK alert!  Is she trying to escape from him?  Play hard to get?  Do we need an intervention?  What's going on here?
3:15 She is SO COLD.  Se gave Andrew the cheap knock-off jewelry George had got for her last year when he was a nobody, but now Andrew wears it upside down.  Forget it George, she's done.
3:24 'We have to walk back to that stupid gondola?  Good thing we're all dressed so brightly that nobody will shoot us!'
3:37 FLASHBACK?  Are they back together?  ???  Last year?  This year?   So confused...
4:07 Incoming gondola alert!  Move out of the way!
4:22 Well, I'm glad they could end up as friends.  Glad they are all happy.

A Prayer for President-Elect Trump

We are called to pray for kings and those in high positions in 1 Timothy 2:1-2 and Ezra 6:10 and to recognize that governing authorities have been instituted by God in Romans 13:1+.  If we do this for those leaders we like, we are especially called to do this for those we do not like.

So now we have President-Elect Trump.  I earnestly hope and pray that Mr. Trump will be a great president, that he will lead us right, that I (and many others) have been very, very wrong about him.  But I fear that the next few months and years will be a disaster.  Mr. Trump has no experience in political matters, has shown no moral character throughout much of his life, and does not appear to have any kind of disposition that you would want in a leader of such a large nation that contains so many different types of people.  I especially fear his lack of humility and his sense of self-promotion will be a huge problem.  Again...maybe (hopefully) I am wrong, that this (as some of my conservative friends have suggested) that this has all been a grand conspiracy of the media to deny a great man his place in history.

But I do not think so, and since of course I have no power to influence him, I had certainly better pray for him.  Yet how do you pray for somebody you dislike and respect so much?  And so here is a prayer I will try to pray daily on his behalf.  God can do greater things than we ever imagine; he certainly must be here if we have any hope.

Dear Lord of all the heavens and earth, whose name is high and great,
-I earnestly come before you on behalf of our new leader, Donald Trump.  I have a great fear that he is not up to the job he has been given.  But I know that you can change hearts and minds and make each of us more than we are by your good gifts, and so I pray for him today.
-I pray that you will bless his family, that they will not be hurt by the endless attacks that will take place on their family simply because they are associated with him.  Help them to draw nearer to one another and to you in this time of testing.  
-I pray that you will give him humility, so that he will know that he does not know everything and that he will desire to learn and grow in this job.  Help him learn from the mistakes he will inevitably make and make those lessons be something that will helpful and not hurtful.  
-I pray that he will not make rash decisions, but prayerfully and with good counsel take time to consider what is right.  
-I pray that the temptations of worldly power will not swallow him up into lusts, greed, avarice, or any of the other dangers that come with worldly power.  Help him to see his position as one of servant leadership, rather than domineering control.  
-I pray that you will give him good advisers, who will not give advice based on what he wants to hear, but what he needs to hear.  May it not be only liberal or conservative or moderate advice, but truly Godly and wise counsel that will help him understand what needs to be done.  
-I pray that you will give him a sense of your Godly joy, that he will enjoy this job and not let it become a burden.  I know that there will be many times that he will have to make difficult and impossible decisions, and so I pray that he will do so with a sense of sober responsibility but not dread.
-I pray that you will help him to make the right kind of appointments in coming weeks, that he will choose men and women who will truly strive to serve the nation instead of their own interests.  Give each of them wisdom and character so they can do what is right.
-I pray that you will bless our country with him as our leader, that we will not fear one another even if we do not agree.  Help us to see that we gain nothing by attacking one another, but are stronger when we stand together.  Help us to realize that we all have planks in our own eyes, before we point fingers at those who have specks in theirs.  Help those who stand in opposition to do it out of good character and a genuine desire to help our nation, rather than simply to be obstinate.  
-O Lord, we are a people in need of your guidance in your life, but we have often rejected it.  Forgive us for our sin and self-righteousness.  Help us strive to follow you each day.  Help us to live to your glory rather than the glory of any person or idea.  
-In the name of Jesus, our only Lord and Savior, we pray, Amen.  

What I think will happen.

So after all the pinching we have done, we are still waking up to a Trumpian presidency to come.  It sounds trite, but I am thankful that Jesus is my true Lord and that I am of a kingdom beyond this world.  Because the one coming into these United States may not be eternal but it will certainly suck.

There's so much to say and worry about, but I have resigned myself to the fact that he will be my president, like it or not.  Am I willing to give him a chance; after all, what choice do I have?  I think the protests taking place against him in many cities is unwarranted at this point; the man is not president yet, and he did win fair and square.  He may turn out to be a great president.  I hope that I, and many others, are wrong. 

But how bad do I THINK it's going to be?  Bad.  Consider what is to come.
-First time there is a big foreign policy crisis, how bad will he screw it up?  How bad will he mess up our relationships with our allies?  How many people will suffer because he is undisciplined and impatient?
-What if he actually is able to enact his protectionist trade policies?  What if the economy goes in the tank, like many predict?  Will he have any political capital to do what he wants?  Just going to a depressed part of the country and promising jobs (hey, that sounds like a Democrat!) won't get the job done.
-What happens if he and Congress gut Obamacare?  Millions will now be without health coverage, or, for people like me who believe it is essential, what will happen when the premium rates turn to a level higher than my mortgage and car payments combined? 
-In the days before the election we are told that his staff took away his phone so he could not post on Twitter.  Will this return?  Will he be posting about how much he hates people at 3am?  Will he have any self-control?   Will he spend his time getting caught up in petty feuds in which he now has executive power to do what he wants?  What happens when newspapers start exposing him as he is?  Will he send the FBI onto them? 
-How long until we hear the story that he has cheated on his wife with some groupie staffer or intern?  Can he maintain faithfulness when he is now the most powerful man in the world with all the aphrodesiac powers that this may have?  Lock up your daughters, Washington GOP!
-What happens when his Trumpian politics run afoul of GOP orthodoxy?  Is he going to completely re-create what the Republicans are, or will he simply become just another politician? 

There's so many bad things that could happen.  Maybe he will handle them like a pro, but I suspect not. 

God help us.

The election apocalypse has arrived

We wake up this morning to the idea of President-Elect Donald Trump.  Ugh.  I had no affinity for Hillary Clinton, but this was an outcome far worse than I could have imagined.  The polls got it all wrong, though Clinton will still win the popular vote count.  Yep, once again the person getting the most votes loses because of an 18th century system of electing by state senate and representative counts.  Good job democracy!

Of course, there have to be some upsides to this.  Many of us will be praying much, much more because we know that only God stands between us and the downfall of civilization at this point.  The Clintons and their endless scandals will leave the national stage.  The election was not a landslide by any means; there is no mandate for Trump in this election, though I wish the Democrats would have at least won the Senate so as to block his worst excesses.

But perhaps the biggest upside over the next four years (assuming Trump is not impeached/does not die/does not resign before his term is up) is that the angry white rage that has built over the past 25 years will finally be shown for what it is.  Trump's lack of experience combined with the reality that whatever ideas he has are either undoable (the wall) or just bad (huge tariffs) will make the executive function of his presidency laughable.  Quite simply, he's going to be a terrible president, and the Democrats (and hopefully others) will be able to spend the next four years pointing out how terrible they are.  Though many Americans may seem so far gone into an alternate reality that nothing he do will turn them away, now this is put-up or shut-up time for these people.  So, you're going to make America great?  Do it!  I'm guessing that these ideas will now mostly die a stillborn death; I fear what might have happened had they been in the hands of somebody more competent or smart.

But this morning over breakfast I apologized to my just-turned-11-year-old daughter about this.  We are leaving her and her brother with a mess.  Those plans we had awhile back to visit somewhere in central America?  They are now not just plans to visit, but perhaps stay.