By: Bishop Reuel Norman O. Marigza
General Secretary, NCCP
“If my people who are called by my name shall humble themselves, and pray; and seek my way and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven, forgive their sin and heal their land,” thus says God in 2 Chronicles 7:14
Only a few more days and we will troop to the polls and make our will known, through the ballot, who will lead us in the next six years. These are crucial hours as we finally write down our choices from President to our local government officials. This is best done on our knees in prayer, seeking the Lord’s guidance and will as to who to choose and elect, whose criteria and qualifications we can glean from God’s Word. In our hands rest where we take our country. It is a heavy responsibility but a privilege as well. It is up to us whether we move towards a more strengthened democracy or we go back to the grim reality of the past and the heavy burden of the present.
These are crucial hours of discernment, where we are to prayerfully seek the mind of Christ. These are crucial hours of discernment when we should come before our God in humility and seek His way. These are crucial hours of discernment as we, the people, implore the aid of Divine Providence, to direct our thoughts and mind, not on our wills, but on God’s will. It is our time to say: Not my will but Thine be done!
And so, we call on the faithful, the believers of our God, and invite those of other faiths, to spend these days in praying, and even in fasting. Let us pray not only for God’s will to be made manifest through the people, but more so, for a clean, orderly and peaceful election. Let us pray for an election with integrity; an election that is honest and untainted by evil schemes to cheat and change the results through whatever means, be they calling COMELEC officials and pressuring them, be it vote-buying or threats and intimidation, or by tampering with source codes and election machines. So let us immerse ourselves in prayer and reflection on God’s Word.
Our responsibility as voters does not end in casting our votes, or in praying for a clean, honest and peaceful election. It is also our responsibility to keep watch and be vigilant. It is our responsibility to see to it that the true results will come out. It is our responsibility to guard our democratic process in theelection and even beyond it. So, pray we must but we should also act. We must ensure that what is written in the ballots are what comes out as the results.
Let us keep watch, therefore, and be vigilant. Let us monitor what transpires. In this age of social media, this election has been divisive in ways like never before. Let us also start to mend our fences, begin the healing process and restore relationships.
Entrusting ourselves and our future to the Lord of life and history, let us then so pray and act. May it be so. Amen.