Lucy, you did it again.
Charlie Brown is on his back and it’s time to get up and dust ourselves off. But this is getting old.
I’ve used this analogy a few times over the years for my city of birth and our attempts of late to bring some balance to the governing bodies of Alaska’s “largest village.”
Anchorage, only an hour or so from Alaska according to those who know and believe such things, got its behind shellacked again yesterday at the polls. Aaugh!
Despite more efforts being employed by more groups than well…pretty much ever, the Anchorage Assembly and the Anchorage School Board will likely remain as radically liberal as they have been in recent memory. Alaska Family Action was privileged to stand alongside Americans For Prosperity, the Republican Women’s Club, the Alaska Republican Party and directly with the many fine candidates who poured their hearts into these races.
Thank you, Bruce, Cody, Dave, Brian, Justin and Donald. Hold your heads high. You ran well.
Dave Donley, the gentle, consummate statesman who has served our state so well on multiple fronts, is holding a razor thin lead in his midtown Assembly seat but his departure from the School Board, and our inability to replace him with a conservative, means that body is now 100% beholden to the NEA and their agenda which, as you might have heard, hasn’t fared so well for our public school students and families.
Assembly candidate Donald Handeland looks to have claimed a victory for the lone suburb of Anchorage, Eagle River/Chugiak, that still embraces a traditional view but even that once very reliable community is now close to equally split. As of now, he’s got 55% of the vote.
It would be easy to ramble on, as my mind did at 11 p.m. last night when I first looked at the numbers, about the standard fare – horribly low voter turnout, very few faith leaders reminding their flock how to or even to vote, more great candidates with great campaigns but the same result, and on and on.
After a night’s rest, though, I’m taking another tack, based on a 26-year-old sermon I watched this morning from Dr. Charles Stanley on dealing with disappointment. He centers his preaching on John 11 that describes the death of Lazarus and how Mary and Martha deal with it.
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You might say to yourself, Minnery, this is only an election. Nobody died. Well, that’s true but there is a lot of true pain in our city right now based on what we thought was happening and would happen and what actually happened. It’s palpable.
Here are Dr. Stanley’s very relevant points –
— We can’t disappoint God. We can disappoint ourselves, we can be disappointed by others and we can let others down, but God is never disappointed. In order to be disappointed, you have to have expectations. God is outside of time, so He isn’t expecting anything. Our disappointments are emotional responses to us not meeting certain goals, but the King of the Universe remains reliably on the throne.
— God has a purpose for allowing the disappointments of our life. Jesus could have healed Lazarus but he wanted it riveted in the minds of his followers that when he was later to be laid in a tomb …His disciples would remember what Jesus had done with Lazarus.
— God is more interested in our spiritual growth than in relieving us of our disappointments. We all may believe the fundamentals of our faith but it’s something else to live by them, through disappointment. We vacillate between reason (Lazarus has been dead four days, he’s starting to smell Jesus) and faith. We do not grow through ease, comfort and pleasure…we grow through hardships.
— Disappointments, of every kind, are opportunities God uses to stretch our faith. Letdowns of every variety are not an indication that God doesn’t love us. He does not move. We might. Our community might. But he doesn’t.
— God wants the best for us regardless of our ability to understand His ways.
Two final thoughts.
Anchorage, a tiny little dot in his universe, is something God cares about. Because it’s occupied by his image bearers.
And … he calls us to look out for its welfare and to be salt and light…again and again.
Lucy, tee that football up.
The views expressed here are those of the author.
