{"id":2386,"date":"2023-02-20T07:04:42","date_gmt":"2023-02-20T12:04:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/js1cd06kre.onrocket.site\/?p=2386"},"modified":"2023-02-20T07:04:42","modified_gmt":"2023-02-20T12:04:42","slug":"trust-in-the-midst-of-doubt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/2023\/02\/20\/trust-in-the-midst-of-doubt\/","title":{"rendered":"Trust in the Midst of Doubt"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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To listen to this reflection as a podcast,\u00a0<\/em>click here<\/a>.
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The first-ever presidential inauguration took place on April 30, 1789, in New York City.
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On that date, Washington D.C. \u2013 the nation\u2019s capital that would ultimately be named for the first president \u2013 was still swampland by the Potomac.
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Every detail of this special event was meticulously planned.\u00a0 Except for one.\u00a0 Nobody had remembered to bring a Bible onto which Washington might place his hand.\u00a0 Robert Livingston, who would be administering the oath of office, happened to be a high-ranking Freemason.\u00a0 He knew there would be a Bible at the nearby St. John\u2019s Masonic Lodge.\u00a0 Arrangements were made to hustle the Bible to Federal Hall, the site of the inauguration, just in time.
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Someone opened the Bible randomly to the book of Genesis.\u00a0 Washington placed his hand there and repeated the oath.\u00a0 Then he added, famously, \u201cso help me God.\u201d
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The Constitution does not require the president-elect to place his hand on a Bible.\u00a0 But precedents established by Washington have had remarkable staying power, and almost every succeeding president has chosen to do so.\u00a0
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John Quincy Adams and Teddy Roosevelt both declined.\u00a0 Because no Bible could be found on Air Force One when Lyndon B. Johnson took the oath of office a few hours after the assassination of John F. Kennedy, LBJ instead put his hand on a Catholic worship book that had belonged to JFK.
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Then there\u2019s Franklin Pierce, the 14th<\/sup> president who took office in 1853.\u00a0
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Pierce, his wife Jane, and their 11-year-old son Benjamin boarded the train that would take them from Boston to Washington for the inauguration.
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Somewhere near Andover, Massachusetts, their car derailed and rolled down an embankment.\u00a0 Jane and Franklin survived, but Benny was found crushed to death in the wreckage.
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The Pierces had now outlived all three of their children.\u00a0 They never recovered from the blow.\u00a0 Historians agree that Pierce\u2019s presidency was almost certainly compromised because of his overwhelming grief.\u00a0 Jane wondered if God was punishing them for seeking elected office.\u00a0 She didn\u2019t appear in public for the first two years of their time in the White House.
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When Pierce came to the moment of taking the oath of office, he placed his hand on a law book.\u00a0 He simply couldn\u2019t place his hand on the Bible. \u00a0He just couldn\u2019t.\u00a0<\/em>
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It was a moment of extraordinary presidential honesty.\u00a0 Pierce believed in God.\u00a0 But what kind of God could allow the excruciating pain of losing his children?
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It\u2019s tempting to believe that the opposite of faith is doubt.\u00a0 It\u2019s not.\u00a0 The opposite of faith is unbelief \u2013 choosing to ignore God\u2019s claims on our life.\u00a0 Doubt is faith under pressure \u2013 faith that is being crushed by unanswered questions or unrelenting pain.\u00a0 Where is God in all this?\u00a0 Why doesn\u2019t he do something?
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Spiritual doubt may seem like an altogether wretched condition.\u00a0 But in truth it is a gift, although a hard one.\u00a0 Doubt drives us to examine why we ever believed in the first place, and whether God actually deserves our trust.
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Doubt, in its most courageous form, may even lead us to ask for help.\u00a0 That\u2019s what Pierce did in his inaugural address.\u00a0 \u201cYou have summoned me in my weakness,\u201d he said, battling his emotions.\u00a0 \u201cYou must sustain me by your strength.\u201d\u00a0 Few presidents have ever been so transparent.
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During the last few rounds of presidential debates, both Republican and Democratic candidates have done everything possible to avoid the impression that they have ever been weak or ever made a mistake.
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On this Presidents Day, we can agree that one of the hallmarks of spiritual authenticity is admitting that we don\u2019t yet know everything we wish we knew.\u00a0
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We\u2019ve not yet become the people we know we\u2019ve been called to be.
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But with God\u2019s help, one day we shall be \u2013 if not in this world, then certainly in the next.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

To listen to this reflection as a podcast,\u00a0click here.\u00a0The first-ever presidential inauguration took place on April 30, 1789, in New York City.\u00a0On that date, Washington D.C. \u2013 the nation\u2019s capital that would ultimately be named for the first president \u2013 was still swampland by the Potomac.\u00a0Every detail of this special event was meticulously planned.\u00a0 Except for one.\u00a0 Nobody had remembered… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2387,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[126,112,569],"class_list":["post-2386","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-doubt","tag-suffering","tag-us-presidents"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2386","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2386"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2386\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2388,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2386\/revisions\/2388"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2387"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2386"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2386"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2386"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}