Mr. President, my heartfelt congratulations to you on this day of your highest personal honor. I hope and pray, in the Lord, that your tenure as my President is a fruitful and successful one, marked by wisdom and sound leadership.
This said, you inherit a country that’s markedly divided, as you know. To that end, in my office as a Christian, I shall not only pray for you and your new administration but offer, humbly and in the Lord, the following.
After King David died, his son Solomon ascended to the throne in Israel. Overwhelmed by this tremendous responsibility, Solomon recognized before God his unfitness to lead so great a people (1 Kings 3:8) and prayed, not for the death or judgment of his enemies but for the wisdom to govern and discern good and evil (1 Kings 3:9). I pray, Mr. President, that this is your attitude and prayer too. How much more vast is the world today, and more numerous the people, then in Solomon’s day? Prayerfully I commend to you this spirit of submission to the Lord. No leader is great unless he is blessed by God and no man has God’s blessing that is prideful.
God was so pleased with Solomon’s prayer, since he didn’t ask for selfish gain, or revenge against his enemies, that He blessed the new king with an abundance of wisdom. But not only that, He bestowed upon him riches and honor such as had never been seen before in history. Once again, Mr. President, this is the path to our mutual success – both yours and mine, the country and my family. We are all linked. We’re all Americans, but more than that, we’re all under the Lord. If you won’t submit yourself to His authority, you’ll assert your own in pride and pride does indeed go before the fall.
This brings us to contemporary America and its vast divisions and lack of trust. I appeal to you, Mr. President, to rise above the partisan divides and rule with wisdom. Unlike Solomon, you aren’t a king, but a president, as you know. Nevertheless, you have an enormous power to heal the nation after a very contentious election. To speak of unity but act with malice is a recipe for dissolution. To that end, I implore you to reach out to the 70 million voters who voted for your opponent. Don’t refer to them as opponents, but as brothers and sisters; don’t demonize them all as terrorists and insurrectionists, but as countrymen. Grant them, Mr. President, the same principle and trust you and your party demanded just four years ago when the last president was sworn in. He was called an illegitimate president, a traitor, and fraud. You and your party, just four years ago to the day, demanded an investigation into the election of ’16 due to your insistence that there was foreign interference, indeed, collusion with Russia. Your party was granted an independent counsel, Robert Mueller and he and his team spent years and millions of dollars proving what most people suspected – that there was never any collusion between the former president and Russia.
It was acrimonious. It was expensive. It undermined the trust many had in our elections. But it was done because one party, yours, demanded it.
Well, Mr. President, in 1 Kings 3:16-28 we read of Solomon’s wisdom. Two prostitutes came to him with a dispute. Both had recently given birth just days apart. But the one woman, in the middle of the night, accidentally rolled onto her poor baby and killed him. She got up and while the other slept, switched out the children so when the other woman awoke to nurse, horrifically, she found the dead child. Upon close examination, the mother determined that the dead infant wasn’t, in fact, her own. She confronted the other prostitute but we know how that went. Thus, they went to the king.
So, these two lowly women, disreputable and sinful, came before Solomon for justice. Ah, such a sweetness that we read, Mr. President! King Solomon gave these two prostitutes his fullest attention! What a lesson for us today, and especially you right now as you take your oath, amidst all your power and distinction. You are president of all Americans…even the prostitutes…even of those that you would be inclined to hold in contempt.
Solomon’s solution was brilliant. With no way of knowing whose baby it was, he demanded a sword. He said, we shall cut the baby in two parts and give one to each. The one woman said, “fine, he shall be neither mine nor yours; divide him (1 Kings 3:26).” But the other was aghast and pleaded with the king to give the child, living and unharmed, to the other woman. Solomon’s test bore out the true mother. He wisely concluded that the woman who pleaded for the life of the child was the true mother, not the one who would see it killed. He knew the true mother. The true mother would rather suffer personal loss than to see the child killed.
To this end, Mr. President, I ask you something similar, though far less graphic. Assign a special prosecutor to audit the past election just as your party demanded last time. It would be a master stroke, sir. Just as Mr. Mueller found no evidence that Russia installed our president in 2016 (an amazing and fantastical claim far greater than the one this year over election fraud), I’m sure you understand that no fraud will be found this time either. In this way, you have nothing to lose and everything to gain. Have Trey Gowdy, a highly respected prosecutor, whom your opponents will certainly trust, be the special counsel just as Mr. Mueller was four years ago. Do this, Mr. President, and you will help heal the nation in this time of great danger. It’s a simple thing to do, a fair thing to do in light of what you and your party demanded last time, and the best way to bring actual unity. To refuse this, however, and continue to demonize those who didn’t vote for you will put you in the camp of the other woman who didn’t care about that child at all. Please, Mr. President, prove your character and wisdom by doing this which is fair and will restore the trust of those you wish to lead. To refuse this is to tell 70 million citizens that you care not that one standard was applied for you and another for them. To refuse this is to render all talk of unity, peace and justice void. To do it would lift you into the pantheon of great presidents – men like Lincoln who saw former foes as friends and overcame hatred with grace.
May God bless you and America on this day and every day forward and may His name be praised.
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