Johnny Sanders (00:00)
Hello everyone and welcome back to Faithful Fridays. So today I'm going to do things a little bit differently than I normally do here on Faithful Fridays. Generally, I will take the Monday episode, which for this week was Joy Pullman's excellent book talking about queer politics and how that's affecting our culture. So I definitely recommend you listen to that if you've not already. But I'm not going to go into that today. Oftentimes,

The intent for these episodes that I make both on Fridays and on Mondays is to be evergreen, evergreen content, basically meaning that you could listen to them at any point and it's still relevant. So I typically don't bring up too many hot-button issues. But today I'm going to do this a little bit differently. As of this recording, I'm actually recording this on Sunday, July 14th, 2024. The day prior,

Um, little, uh, little more than 24 hours ago at this point. Um, former President Trump, President Trump, whatever, whatever you call them, um, was having a, a rally, a campaign rally in, um, Pennsylvania and he had an attempted assassination, um, became within an inch, um, less than an inch of losing his life. Um, those of you who are listening to this, especially if

You know recent you probably know what I'm talking about. This was a very significant event I'm gonna throw the the conservative side out for a second just as far as a news event goes in my lifetime This is up there, Nine Eleven is like the moment for a millennial like myself. That's like the big political type of event in our lifetime

This is not quite to that level. It's big. We've not had an attempted assassination in my lifetime. And if you're a millennial out there, in your lifetime as well. The last one was in the 80s with Ronald Reagan. So this is a big deal. Now, I don't want to get too much into the specifics of what happened as much as discussing where we go from here. My audience, most of you out there are

Johnny Sanders (02:32)
conservative Christians, that's who this is tailored for. A majority of you, I'm imagining, were already planning on voting for Trump. Some of you, maybe not. And this isn't to say who to vote for on this. Again, that's not the purpose of this. What I am going to say is there were a lot of emotions here. Again, it's a big deal when a, in this case, a former president and certainly a presidential nominee is

shot at. mean, he was if you've seen those videos, I mean, just super close to dying. I mean, it was as serious as it gets. So you're gonna have a range of emotions and look Trump is a very, big figure. He's a lightning rod. People love him. People hate him. Regardless of where you stand. Again, this was this was a very emotional thing. And it should

should be saddening, it should be a little scary when you see something like that happen. I want to start there by just having a range of emotions, taking this into more of a Christian worldview. Look, God gave us emotions for a reason. If you felt scared, if you felt mad, felt disappointed, all of these things wrapped up into it, it's okay to feel those things like God.

God made us as humans who experience emotion, a range of emotions. It's fine for us to feel those things. You don't need to be a robot in a situation like this or any situation in your life. So it's okay to have those emotions. But why I'm bringing up this talk of emotions is emotions can overrule you. As a conservative Christian out there, you may, especially on the conservative side, you may be mad.

And Trump has angered a lot of people, a lot of powerful people. And you may take this and say, well, this is a sign that this is an inside job or somebody's gunning them down from the political class or whatever it may be. Again, I'm not going to touch the conspiracy side of this, but I can understand why you would be very concerned. A candidate like Trump being shot at is a big deal.

Johnny Sanders (04:54)
Again, I'm not attacking the emotion. am very much cautioning anybody out there, but especially for conservatives to not let that emotion rule you. Don't let that anger overtake you. Don't let that suspicion of government and conspiracies and things like that to overtake you. It's okay to fill them. It's another if it overtakes you. I'll give you a quick example here. In the hours after

This happened yesterday. I'm scanning my X feed and everything, Facebook, and you're seeing everything. You saw pictures of these potential pictures of what the shooter looked like that were false and getting just all this information. This is his name. That's his name. All this stuff coming and it was pretty quickly shown to either be verified or not be verified. And look, these things happen during a big event.

Stuff just gets thrown out there. What I'm saying here is we need to slow down. I get it, emotions are high. There's all sorts of stuff lying out there, especially in the age of the internet. Slow down. Feel what you have to feel, but don't make sudden rash judgments, or rash actions out there, especially online. We all know comments and things like that are forever. Slow down before you start posting a bunch of stuff.

We don't want to get caught into Twitter fights and things like that that you don't need to be a part of. So really slow down. And then I want to get into the political side of things. I've long had this suspicion, not suspicion, more fear that the right is going to be pushed and pushed and pushed before there's an actual violent streak out there.

there are going to be conservatives that maybe are attacking liberals out there or having more racist types of attacks or things of that nature. Just basically somebody who's tired of being bullied and then lashing out in violence. And I don't know what the future holds, but I do know that you need to hold yourself accountable to slow down, be in control of your actions, not let that emotion overtake you

Johnny Sanders (07:21)
Try to police some of that for people that you know, maybe well-intended family members or friends or somebody you see online. Just have an eye out for this stuff. A violent response to this is the last thing that we need. So really be cautious on your end that you are not feeding the beast here of just this rage machine that's going on and on and

So be very very cautious in your response back and this isn't just online It's also with friends and family members and things of that nature. Look, if that means you need to take a week off of Social media or things like that like do what you got to do to calm down, and now granted when I'm saying this I'm not saying to not care I'm not saying to not that's why I started with talking about our range of emotions. It's okay to feel those

It's okay to post some things online, but we need to be in control of this because the last thing we need is more violence, more stoking the flames. We need to be very calculated in these responses. So that being said, let's bring this back in and take it out of the Trump situation. Again, I didn't want to focus too much on this one spot.

but broaden it out to our lives in general. Again, there's a lot of uncertainty. It's probably the most uncertain time of a lot of our lifetimes. Some of you listening who maybe are a little bit older than you may remember times growing up with Soviet scares and things of that nature. So it's not like uncertainty is a new thing.

Life is always uncertain. In fact, that's what we're about to get into. But it's very apparent. It's very tense. It's a very tense environment right now. So let's get into a passage of scripture that, again, is one that I didn't have planned, but my pastor actually preached through this today as I'm recording this. I just thought it was very applicable to this topic. And it's in James 4 verses 13 through 17. So it reads, starting in

Johnny Sanders (09:43)
13. “Come now, you who say, today or tomorrow, we will go into such and such town, and spend a year there, and trade and make a profit. Yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time, and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, if the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that. As it is you boast in your arrogance.

All such boasting is evil. So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it for him, it is sin.” Now this passage here, it's talking about how we don't know what tomorrow will bring. One of the craziest things about this assassination attempt, was not just that it happened, I mean, it grazed the president's ear. I mean, that was super, super close.

But some of you might have seen this, that President Trump turned his head to the side like that right before that shot happened. And that little tilt like that is what saved his life. Had he not tilted, it was going to be a straight-on shot to his head, almost assuredly killing him right then and there. That slight turn, that's all it was. Now,

That was not a defensive turn. That wasn't something that President Trump had any idea what was going on. Just did it. And this is where kind of our own arrogance can get in the way that we have all these plans in life. I'm going to do this. I'm going to do that. And look, it's not bad to have plans. we need to do things. We need to care for our families. We need to be

active in our lives. it's not about that. It's about that attitude. Something my pastor was talking about. That it's the arrogance of thinking that I know what the future is going to hold. Like I guarantee you, President Trump had no idea that that was going to happen. Many of you have probably known family members who have maybe died in a car wreck or something sudden happened like that. They had no idea that was going to happen.

Johnny Sanders (12:07)
taking this away from President Trump, none of us know what tomorrow holds. None of us are guaranteed tomorrow. And if we go in with this mindset, this arrogant type of mindset that I know what my future holds, I've got this all under control. You don't. And if we just stop there, that we don't have it under control, boy, that's scary. There's a lot of anxiety going on. Again, what happens next?

in the current cultural political environment with this assassination attempt? I don't know. And yeah, it is a little scary. I kind of wish that I knew, but I don't. You don't. Nobody does. But we don't just stop there. We know that God is in control. Our life is just like it says in verse 14, for you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. That's what our life

Super fast in the grand scheme of things but God is in control and while we don't know what the Lord's will is We can have faith in that and that's what I beg you to do Especially those of you who are they're very politically minded, especially those of you that are enthusiastically supporting Trump as the upcoming president To have faith that God has this in control now that still may lead you to

Maybe if you're more politically minded, maybe you're doing some campaigning online or talking to friends or whatever, being unashamed about supporting Trump in the election. If you do that, that's your own business there. What I am saying though, is regardless of what happens politically, God has things in control. He is the one who is dictating all things.

We can have faith in that we could be honest by saying yeah, I'm a little scared, but I trust you anyways, an example again that my pastor gave and as far as that feeling of control he gave kind of this metaphor of a road trip of sorts going on and the child in the backseat is planning. All right at the next Stop, I'm gonna get this drink or this snack or whatever. So they're planning that child is planning

Johnny Sanders (14:33)
But they're not in control. The parent is the one who is driving. The parent is the one who is really in control. The child has some little plans, but they pale in comparison to the big picture. So look, we have our own little plans, but we must have faith that in this case of the example with the little kid trusting their parent, that...

Human parents are flawed and have all sorts of problems in there, but still, that little child trusts them. My own children have this sense of trust that daddy's gonna take care of them and I do the best to my ability But I know that in comparison to God caring for us, I'm an utter failure in comparison. So having trust in God's plan even when we don't know, That's where that faith comes in. That's where we get that assurance.

We don't want to be arrogant like verse 16 talks about and boast. It's actually evil. It's actually sinful for us to have this arrogance that we know exactly what's going to happen. We know exactly what's going to happen in November. Whenever the presidential election happens, we don’t know exactly what's going to happen in five in our five-year plan. We don't. We could try to plan. We can try to come up with responsible things that we can do in our lives or who we vote for or whatever. But where is your trust?

Your trust needs to be in God and God alone. So I hope that this is encouraging to you to know that once, God gave you these emotions and you can experience them. You can be bad, you can be sad, you can be scared, you can be all those things. But that trust, that action where you need to be set in is that God is in control. I can control my own little child piece, that child going to the gas station and saying that he wants a Coke instead of a Sprite.

He can control that. But we don't have control over the big picture. God has that in control and that should be encouraging. So I hope that this is an encouraging word to you. Hope that you have a great rest of your weekend and look, a little practical thing. Take some time away from the news for a little bit. This stuff matters. I get it. But play with your kids. Turn the TV off. Turn your phone off for a little bit and just be grateful for the day that God has given you because just like

Johnny Sanders (16:55)
that missed this much for men in his life, we don't know what our life holds either. So we can use that to stay in fear, or we could use that to be grateful for the day that we get that we weren't guaranteed. All right, you guys take care, and I hope you have a great weekend. I'll see y 'all.