{"id":391,"date":"2013-10-14T18:10:48","date_gmt":"2013-10-14T18:10:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/safeplacewithruthgraham\/?p=391"},"modified":"2013-10-14T18:10:48","modified_gmt":"2013-10-14T18:10:48","slug":"shut-down-default-hope","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/safeplacewithruthgraham\/2013\/10\/shut-down-default-hope.html","title":{"rendered":"Shut Down &#8211; Default"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Here we go again!<\/p>\n<p>The leaders in Washington &#8211; regardless of party affiliation, race, religion, sexual orientation, age &#8211; are not leading. They will not let go of their own egos to try to do what is right for this nation. I am not sure they love our country.<\/p>\n<p>It reminds me of the monkey who was so hungry. He looked high and low until he found a banana. It was in a bottle. He reached in and grabbed the banana. Now he had a problem: with his fist around the fruit it could not fit through the narrow bottle opening. He thought. He pulled. He looked. He did everything he could think of to get that banana out of the bottle. He wouldn&#8217;t let go of his treasured banana in order to get his fist out. The monkey was found dead still grasping the banana.<\/p>\n<p>Our leaders are going to let this country die as they hold onto their treasured programs, status and position. I am sure on some levels they are very good men who perhaps started out wanting to serve this great nation. They seem to have lost their way on the way to ambition and &#8220;being right&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>We have no statesmen anymore. Men willing to personally sacrifice for the betterment of their country. (I did appreciate those veterans who decided to open some of our national parks on Saturday. They took a stand for what they \u00a0believed was right.) Listening to the news is sad. There is no help on the horizon. Any &#8220;fix&#8221; is short-term. As someone said,&#8221;It&#8217;s just kicking the can down the road&#8221; &#8211; again. We&#8217;ve done that before; it brings us back to the same situation. The definnition of insanity is to keep doing the same thing over and over hoping for a different result. By that measurement then all the leaders in D.C. are \u00a0insane.<\/p>\n<p>At times I do feel as if the inmates are running the asylum.<\/p>\n<p>So where is God in all of this? Well, first of all God never shuts down. He is always available 24\/7! And God never defaults on His promises! He is faithful. He does what He says He will do. We can take that to the bank!<\/p>\n<p>God is still on His throne. Still in charge. His purpose is being carried forward &#8211; even in this.<\/p>\n<p>Like ancient Israel we have disobeyed time and again. But God&#8217;s purpose is never thwarted \u00a0&#8211; it keeps rolling along. We can choose to honor God and repent of our godless ways (and yes, what we are doing is godless) or continue in this mess. It will only get worse. But there is HOPE.<\/p>\n<p>But God is ready and willing to help us turn around. He answers when we call on Him. It is never too late.<\/p>\n<p>Let us pray for our leaders &#8211; that they will seek God&#8217;s wisdom, not just their own. That they will make righteous decisions. And lead us in godly ways. If &#8220;my people, my God-defined people, respond by humbling themselves, praying, seeking my presence, and turning their backs on their wicked lives, I&#8217;ll be there ready for you; I&#8217;ll listen from heaven, forgive their sins, and restore their land to health&#8230;) II Chronicles 7:14 in The Message. That is our hope!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Here we go again! The leaders in Washington &#8211; regardless of party affiliation, race, religion, sexual orientation, age &#8211; are not leading. They will not let go of their own egos to try to do what is right for this nation. I am not sure they love our country. It reminds me of the monkey&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":466,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-391","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-commentary","category-current-issues-in-the-news"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Shut Down - Default  - Safe Place with Ruth Graham<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/safeplacewithruthgraham\/2013\/10\/shut-down-default-hope.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Shut Down - Default  - Safe Place with Ruth Graham\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Here we go again! The leaders in Washington &#8211; regardless of party affiliation, race, religion, sexual orientation, age &#8211; are not leading. They will not let go of their own egos to try to do what is right for this nation. I am not sure they love our country. It reminds me of the monkey&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/safeplacewithruthgraham\/2013\/10\/shut-down-default-hope.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Safe Place with Ruth Graham\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2013-10-14T18:10:48+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Ruth Graham\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Shut Down - Default  - Safe Place with Ruth Graham","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/safeplacewithruthgraham\/2013\/10\/shut-down-default-hope.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Shut Down - Default  - Safe Place with Ruth Graham","og_description":"Here we go again! The leaders in Washington &#8211; regardless of party affiliation, race, religion, sexual orientation, age &#8211; are not leading. They will not let go of their own egos to try to do what is right for this nation. I am not sure they love our country. 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No stranger to heartache, she seeks to provide a Biblical perspective to her journey of faith. She is warm and talks openly about her own need for a safe place as she journeyed through her husband\u2019s infidelities, her subsequent depression, her divorces, her teenage daughter\u2019s two unplanned pregnancies, another daughter\u2019s bulimia, her son\u2019s battle with drugs, grandson's special needs and returning to school at age 40. Although born into the \"famous\" Graham family Ruth did not feel she had a safe place to unburden the secrets of her life. She felt she had to project and image and wear a mask that she \"had it all together\". She had to meet others' expectations of her. It was not until a mid-life crisis did that she fully discover the unconditional love and grace of God. Her life's passion is to connect people to that same grace and love she found, no matter who they are or what sin. Ruth is an experienced conference speaker and Bible teacher. She has appeared on a variety of radio and television shows including: Good Morning, America, The Hour of Power, Focus on the Family, Moody Broadcasting, Fox &amp; Friends, CBN, Life Today and CNN. She has worked in publishing for over 14 years and is the founder of the Ruth Graham &amp; Friends Ministry. Ruth has three grown children and nine grandchildren. She lives in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. Her life Bible verse is John 1:16.","sameAs":["http:\/\/ruthgrahamministries.com"],"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/safeplacewithruthgraham\/author\/rgraham"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/safeplacewithruthgraham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/391","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/safeplacewithruthgraham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/safeplacewithruthgraham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/safeplacewithruthgraham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/466"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/safeplacewithruthgraham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=391"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/safeplacewithruthgraham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/391\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":393,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/safeplacewithruthgraham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/391\/revisions\/393"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/safeplacewithruthgraham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=391"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/safeplacewithruthgraham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=391"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/safeplacewithruthgraham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=391"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}