I believe in the hand of God on both the great and small in our lives.  The seemingly insignificant is often His cue card to us, a sometimes gentle and sometimes jarring reminder of that for which we need a refresher.  It’s a contemporary to the still small voice that commanded Elijah at the end of his paradox: fleeing the wrath of Ahab and Jezebel after being the vessel through which God defeated the followers of their false god Baal on Mt. Carmel.  From mountain to mountain; on the first the height of strength as through the Lord he stared down four hundred and fifty false prophets along with their followers, on the second needing reaffirmation.  Such is human nature even in those so mighty in the Spirit they did not die but were taken alive into heaven.  If an Elijah required the occasional nudge, who are we to believe we need anything less?

Such a moment happened to me this morning on my way to work.  I had decided to take the commute off from writing, preferring to be alone with my thoughts.  While flipping through the assembled tunes on Mr. iPhone deciding what I’d listen to, I settled on a collection of Lost Dogs tunes I put together some time back.  Rather than playing them in the assembled order, on a whim I hit the shuffle function to let whatever came up come up.  The first song?  “Eleanor, It’s Raining Now,” Terry Taylor’s apocalyptic vision/warning of the coming nightmare.

So much for that morning off.

The importance of today’s election cannot be overstated.  While it is overly simplistic in the extreme to describe this as a battle of good versus evil, it is a contest of core philosophies: government as a servant of the people versus government as master of the people under the guise it’s for their own good.  No matter how noble the sentiment, legislated charity by force (which is what tax plans designed to redistribute the wealth are) is doomed from the start.  Only the heart changed by Christ; only the genuine giving spirit can make a difference.  Everything else is expensive shadow boxing and window dressing.  An Obama presidency would be a financial disaster, a swing to the left doing great harm to the middle class while solving nothing.  It is, should it take place, a coming nightmare.

Yet even if Obama wins, all is not lost.  In the same manner as God reminded Elijah He had reserved for Himself seven thousand in Israel who had not fallen away from Him to follow Baal, the faithful of today will remain a loving irritant to vapid liberalism.  They will remind those who would be kings and queens that they will fail and they will fall.  The followers of Christ will remain steadfast and serene, their eyes fixed not on polls and pundits but rather the perspective known only by those who have caught the sweet fragrance of eternity’s truths.  Christ will win in the end.  As St. Paul said, our present troubles do not compare to the coming glory.

An apocalyptic warning is a good thing when heeded.