I love good preaching and I happen to have one of the finest preachers for a pastor, ever. Whenever my pastor's name is mentioned among friends or other fellow saints, it is very evident how well respected he is. The respect comes from his moral character, ethics, wisdom and leadership, as well as his preaching ability. I have never really understood why he has not headlined more camp meetings than he has, because he definitely could.
He is a GREAT orator.
Having said that, there are also men that God has called to preach that do not have the greatest oration skills. Some of them have charisma but lack in oration. Others have neither. However, with God's calling on their life, they have GREAT churches. A good example of a man who was not considered a great orator and neither had much charisma was Elder I.H. Terry (who has since gone on to his reward) and whom I have met and heard preach personally. It's been said that he had a handful of simple messages that he preached over and over again. He was also known to be extremely blunt.
This is the man who, with God's guidance, mentored and guided more men to preach the gospel than any other pastor that I know of. This is the man who, with God's anointing, preached the truth to the best of his ability, and because of this has left the legacy of a great church still flourishing and many men either pastoring churches or evangelizing.
Now to get the point of my post.
I was pretty determined not to post anymore about Barack Obama, and particularly about the inauguration. I have been trying to look on the bright side of this man who is now the 44th president of the United States of America. He is biracial and that is a HUGE plus. In fact, I'm ecstatic about that. I will not reiterate all the reasons that I distrust the man, and really in my heart do hope that I am wrong.
The reason I became "undetermined" to post on this subject is because of the absolute adoration of this MAN called Barack Obama. That's right. MAN. Imagine as many people as are in the city of Calgary, Alberta - approximately 1,000,000 people - that's ONE MILLION people - flocking to see THE MAN. And more than this elected this man worthy of leading their nation. WHY? WHY? WHY?
It is not because of his experience - he had less than the much criticized Sarah Palin. I daresay it's not even because of his policies, although his well thought out platform of "change" did contribute somewhat to his success; and perhaps it is because he is half African-American and half white and history will be made.
I propose, however, that the main reason that this man has been elected the next president is because he is great orator and he is loaded with charisma. And that doesn't just sadden me, it sickens me. If I have heard these phrases once, I've heard them a thousand times, "but he's such a GREAT SPEAKER!" "HE JUST HAS A WAY ABOUT HIM!".
Wowsie, wowsie. Big hairy deal. Talk about the superficiality of humanity. To think that just because a man can speak well and is loaded with personal charm makes him fit to run the most powerful country in the world is plain ludicrous. To think that these people do not really care about anything else and are not the least bit interested in trying to get to the bottom of who the man REALLY is leading their country.
I realize it's wonderful to have both a great leader and great orator because I have that for a pastor. But if one has to choose between a great leader who has ethics, strong morals and values OR a great orator who does not (and yes, FACTS do back me up on that - he had the most liberal voting record on moral issues in the senate), why would anyone choose the latter? I mean anyone besides Hollywood's finest, anyway.
I really do wish the man well because he faces a difficult task. However, if things continue to deteriorate in that country morally, take comfort my friends in the fact that at least he's charming and can speak well. It should count for something, right?
Even though God can use a donkey (literally), somehow we humans can't.
3 comments:
Amidst all the emotion of this new presidency, at least we can take comfort that God is in control.
"And He changes the times and the seasons; He removes kings and raises up kings; He gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to those who have understanding." ~ Daniel 2:21
I enjoyed reading this post, as always. Being a great speaker is a great quality to have, but thank God that it's not a must in order to be great in His Kingdom.
Truthfully, Rachel, I'm not really "discomfitted". Not anymore anyway. And until we get to heaven, we will never if this was all part of God's bigger plan.
It really is the ability that we have to only want to see the surface of things that got to me, and thus prompted my post. Perhaps it's my own distrust of really "suave" people because it's very easy to use their charm to manipulate for selfish purposes. Someone charming really needs a strong person to guide them, in my opinion. For me, when someone is overly charming, I have always tended to back off.
I don't know. Maybe the problem is between my own two ears.
Thanks for commenting.
No, I think you're right about the "suave" people. Not that I think they should all be painted with the same brush, because there are some very eloquent and charming people who have genuine intentions, however many times they use their skills only for their own benefit.
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