Are Our Fields Prepared to Receive the Rain of Victory?

Topic: Perspective

I’ve posted several times about one of my favorite movies, a nearly two-decade-old low budget film called Facing the Giants, which received ho-hum reviews from critics.  Early on, the viewer sees Coach Taylor’s Eagles are hapless, starting a do-or-die season with a record of 0-3 (no wins to three losses).  One day, the beleaguered coach is fretting in his office and is paid a visit by an older man named Mr. Bridges who has paced the halls of the school for years praying for a spiritual revival.

Mr. Bridges encourages the coach and tells him he is to bloom right where he is planted because God still has plans for him at the school, even though whispers persist everywhere around him.  The coach asks him in disbelief if he really believes God wants him to hear that message and Mr. Bridges says this:

There were two farmers who desperately needed rain, and both of them prayed for rain.  But only one of them went out and prepared his fields to receive it.  Which one do you think trusted God to send the rain?

The coach knows the answer, and the rest is history.  His team goes on to win it all and Coach Taylor sees God’s hand at work in all aspects of his life.  We God-fearing, patriotic Americans living in 2023 also face giants of fear and failure, and thus far, are laboring in vain because our attitudes and actions are not collectively in line with the values and desires we express in writing and in speech.

What I am going to write today may offend you, and I’m alright with that.  Some of the best things that happened in my life, even though they hurt then, and perhaps caused lasting damage, drove me to greater heights.  My Dad made fun of my weight when I was in middle-school and told me he was embarrassed to watch me play baseball.  That did in fact cause me serious self-esteem issues that lasted for many years, but also drove me to excel and persist in a way few others can and maintain a level of physical fitness that sets me apart from those who made fun of me all those years ago, when I was busy being picked last for sports teams and underachieving in big ways. 

How else do you think I’ve lasted this long on the road, travelling 271 days for work last year, never getting sick, and taking everything that can possibly be thrown at me?  If you’re sitting around angry at the state of the nation today, yet mentioned in one of these groups described below, then this article is for you.  There is no time like the present to push away apathy, commit to action, and live your life without the belief that what you do leaves no lasting impact.

If we are going to pray for rain, victories over these powers and principalities, then our actions need to line up with the belief that we expect to receive these victories over darkness from God Himself.  It has been made abundantly clear to us that these giants are far too imposing and powerful for us to handle ourselves, or we would have long since done it by now.

These areas must be prepared to receive rain, and quickly:

Engagement

Are we truly doing everything we must do to achieve victory on key freedom battlefields?  You can tell what those battlefields are by discerning which issues the politicians are refusing to resolve to the benefit of the people.  Those appear be to be election integrity, medical freedom, equal justice, and other critical issues.  I have always told event attendees that election integrity is the only political issue that matters, because without it, we have no say in who we have as representative leaders.  I usually carry on describing the battles for medical freedom and justice for political prisoners, as well as the pro-life cause, to be top-shelf choices for citizen engagement.

Clearly, if you’ve followed my work, you know my field is election integrity.  That’s why I don’t stumble into the medical or judicial fields often – so I stay on task and in my lane, and most importantly, out of the way of others with a bigger platform than I have for those, or any other, fields.  Everywhere I go, it never fails – people are eager to solve the crisis of our system of elections.  If 80% of self-described Republicans believe the 2020 election was stolen, then 99% of those attending election integrity events do (the exceptions granted are for spouses, friends, or colleagues dragged along for the free dad jokes).

Why is it, then, that our critical counties are desperately short on precinct committeemen?  Maricopa County, Arizona, ground zero for the election integrity crisis, is many hundreds of precinct committeemen shy of being fully staffed, not only more than two and a half years after Trump’s stolen election, but seven months after Kari Lake’s.  In fact, a number of the precinct committeeman spots that are staffed are filled by members of the Arizona Republican cartel, with a short supply of patriots will to step up to the plate.

Well, they’re just going to steal it again, and the courts are corrupt.

It isn’t you that is supposed to deliver a miracle.  That is God’s job.  Read your Bibles – God still requires action even when he is busy doing a miracle.  David still picked up the stones, Joshua marched around Jericho, Moses stuck his staff in the sea, and Daniel willingly went to the den of lions.  Christ himself even went to the cross, a sentence reserved for the most despised, heinous enemies of the Roman Empire.  How are we supposed to drive out the vote, get eyes on the lowest levels of election administration that catch voter fraud (different than election fraud), and implement key policy locally and statewide when we can’t even step up to fill the most basic leadership positions available pertaining to elections?

Christians reading this – did you know that atheists engage in political activities at a rate that is double that of white evangelical Christians?  Are we truly able to spend all of June complaining about a woke corporate vomit-fest when we have all but ceded the civic and cultural terrain to those who fully embrace postmodernism?

The same can be said for the other mountains impacting culture, as defined by the great Lance Wallnau, who has become a good friend of mine.  If we care about medical freedom, are we organizing lawfare against companies that violate the rights of our citizens?  If we espouse pro-life views and criticize the abortion lobby, are we finding ways to make it easier for would-be mothers to choose life?  Posting on social media is no longer the end goal of activism.  We must outrun and outhustle our opponents if we are to impact society.

Attitude

Coach Taylor had his own memorable line in the movie, telling a player with a bad attitude that his attitude was the aroma of his heart.  My dad ingrained in me that my attitude was my altitude, and even wrote me about the importance of maintaining a good attitude when I was across the world in Afghanistan, and he was at home dying of cancer:

Are our attitudes in this freedom movement, which is supposed to oppose the status quo of corruption, whether that comes from the right or the left, and enhance the liberty of the nation, something to emulate, or something to discard?  Sure, there are infiltrators inside the wire, but you all know if this applies to you, or if it applies to many of our fellow patriots who suck energy from a group.

You know the drill:

(Good news is posted)

You’re just stringing us along with “hopium,” and nothing will ever change.

(Bad news is posted)

So you’re telling us it’s over?

(Neutral news is posted)

This is taking too long!

If you are a leader, your thoughts and actions impact those around you in ways you may not consider.  You may be strong enough to drive on, but if your pessimism forces ten other people to pack it up and take shelter, where then is your army?  We have plenty of influencers, but far too ground troops thanks to discouragement, disillusionment, and apathy caused by lack of pursuit of achievable goals.

Conduct

The political right has become radicalized and baptized in ideological purity thanks to the failings of those we call RINOs (Republicans in Name Only).  I never heard the term until I was 24 years old, but since then, have found it to be overused, and generally held in reserve to verbally punish those who don’t align perfectly with one’s own viewpoints.

Anyone not against us is for us.  Those who want clean elections, even if they don’t know exactly how to achieve that goal (who does?), are on our side.  We don’t need to start splinter groups creating the same wheel every time someone has a disagreement.  Children in kindergarten learn right away to keep their hands to themselves and to learn to share toys with other children.  It seems to me that many on this side of the operation need to re-learn these critical lessons.

Every time an influencer with a huge following hits another influencer with a huge following, it is not the influencers who take on the damage.  It is the subscribers who are wounded because they often don’t know who or what to believe.  Why?  Because most people are not political.  They may know elections are rigged, but they grab at low hanging fruit, or people who offer only elementary solution, and because of that, may still get involved.  We spend more time hitting, doxing, digging, and swinging at people who are on our side than we do swinging at the enemy or organizing for action, as proven by the vacancies I’ve described in Maricopa County and elsewhere, and as shown by statistics showing the dominance of the irreligious in political participation over Christians.

For example – I do not agree with anyone who believes that the 2024 election can or will be won by our ballot harvesting; however, to oppose them on anything more than technique and strategy in a public forum would be to oppose the good things they do, such as registering new voters, raising awareness, and getting people off of their butts to engage with their neighbors in an age in which iPhones have taken the place of real relationships and camaraderie.

We need people on our side fighting for fair elections, or the unborn, or for political prisoners, who have taken vaccines you yourself would not have taken (practically every veteran leaving the military from 2021 and beyond), and we need people on our side who have only recently pushed away views that are left, even far left, of center.  If we don’t allow people to change, we don’t have the numbers to turn the tide in America.  Like it or not, there is a Gospel lesson in there, too, and it is not lost on me that many of the key players in Scripture came from outside of the circle of public approval.

Many people claiming to war with us war against us even in terms of simple economics, claiming to be capitalists while acting like socialists, harassing people over being paid modest amounts for their time, work, and intellectual property while taking all the slings arrows that come from a given event.  While failing to understand the left’s dominance of economics and what that means for we little people, they discourage others from taking up the fight.

Finally, while I am critical of many of the establishment candidates lining up for the 2024 race, I am willing to disagree at the personal level for the sake of the operation.  I have one friend in mind who is doing great things in the political world who has seemingly faded from view over a DeSantis-Trump fissure, and I regret deeply that political division has caused movement toward these goals to stall in many ways.

Faith

This gets to me like no other point on my list.  If social media weren’t so essential to spreading the word and communicating with the troops in the field, I would likely cease using platforms like Telegram, Twitter, and Truth Social.  Public officials are fair game for criticism of their open corruption, obstruction, evil agendas, and lies, and even so, I almost always keep said criticism on social media focused on those specific items, not their personal failures, children, or sex lives. 

I consider it highly discouraging to see so many on our side proclaim Christian faith and use that faith to crush others at a personal level who may or may not ascribe to the same worldview.  Twitter and Telegram are toxic cesspools of drama, gossip, slander, and evil of which every word will one day be answered for.  If there is anything (thus far, not the media, mileage, occasional high blood pressure, stress, threat of peril, loss of ability to climb a corporate ladder) that makes me want to move away to obscurity, it is the constant bickering, infighting, and drama among purported patriots and followers of Christ that, instead of being in the world but not of the world, are behaving just like those we claim to oppose.

This does not mean we don’t fight back, have an edge, or get hot blooded.  Our faith calls us to engage, to stay grounded to our values, and to effectively lead others who are not as strong into action.  We must do everything possible to prepare to receive victory, and until we have our own houses in order as pertains to engagement, attitude, conduct, and faith, we will be continuously frustrated in the face of our challenges.

Author’s Note: I’ve been on edge about the loss of focus and cohesion evident in the freedom movement, and think I’ve effectively put it down in writing.  It is free from the time of publication not only for you, but especially for your friends who are coasting their ways through life waiting on someone else to solve the world’s problems.  I am thankful you’ve read this far (more than 2,300 words), and if you’re able, I would greatly appreciate your subscription as a paid member of this journal.  Thank you!