Trump's Still Ear

The news of the unsuccessful attempt on Donald Trump’s life was exercising several minds last Sunday. I generally avoid political conversations on the Lord’s Day, but the nearness of the miss is quite remarkable, and one cannot but think that the hand of a providential God spared his life. Someone has calculated that being American President is one of the world’s most statistically dangerous jobs, seeing as four of the 45 incumbents have been killed in office. Only one British Prime Minister was assassinated, back in 1812 (Spencer Percival, a fact I once committed to memory in case it ever came up in a quiz, which it did), though many other attempts were unsuccessful, such as on Mrs Thatcher in the 1980s and John Major in the 1990s. Several attempts were even made on the lives of Queen Victoria and Queen Elizabeth II; in other words, any holder of national and senior public office may expect some disaffected madcap or an unhinged ideologue to seek their death. Assassination is both cruel and unjust. Even the assassination attempts made on Hitler’s life would, if successful, have prevented a well-deserved trial, much like his chosen suicide.

There is an occasion in scripture when Herod Agrippa I is effectively killed by an angel on account of an ill-advised policy decision which was a particular insult to the true God whom he claimed to know. In Acts 12, an angel of the Lord ‘struck him' so that he died. We Christians seek to kill no leader, no matter how odious and disagreeable their actions and policies. Rather, we leave such things to God’s good providence and promised justice. Until then, we endure; until then, we wait.

Vengeance is Mine, and recompense; Their foot shall slip in due time; For the day of their calamity is at hand, And the things to come hasten upon them.’ Deuteronomy 32:35, NKJV

Image by ErikaWittlieb from Pixabay