"Do not rejoice when your enemy falls, and do not let your heart be glad when he stumbles; Or the LORD will see it and be displeased, and turn His anger away from him."

Proverbs 24:16-17

I was reading these verses today and thought how timely. We are in the midst of chaotic times. Ie. the elections. Ie. the candidates.

It is a time when people wait like lions ready to devour their prey - watching for their opponent to slip, to say one wrong thing, to stumble in some way. Then they can stand back and rejoice within that their opponent has fallen.

If you know me you know I pay no attention to the political hodgepodge of candidates backbiting or boasting of great achievements, making great promises. Our nation has turned running for president into a game of who can find the most things wrong with someone else so that they're still standing in November. That is the way the world works. The world is about self-promotion. We should not be surprised at that.

Yet we should not participate in that.

When those we are not going to vote for end up "stumbling" due to a moral failure, we should not stand and rejoice at that. We should pray for them. We should weep and mourn that our nation, which once upheld at least the moral laws of God, now seeks to tear them down. But we should not stand and laugh at the failure of those we do not agree with.

This scripture speaks of "enemies" but these people are NOT our enemies. They are our mission field. Somewhere in Washington D.C. there are true believers who live and work there so that they can witness one-by-one to those we see in the public eye every day. When we see someone stumble, may we pray that God would send a witness to that person and save their soul.

Our nation will stand or fall depending on God's will, not man's.

"The king's heart is like channels of water in the hand of the LORD; He turns it wherever He wishes."

Proverbs 21:1