What Will President Obama Do?

It is the evening of a special day in United States history, a day very much unlike any other day this country has experienced in its 233 year history. For many it was a day to celebrate, a day for old wounds to heal and new words to be spoken, a day for triumph, for victory. For others it was a somewhat ominous day, a day to wonder what comes next, what awaits around the corner. But all U.S. citizens shared a common theme on this day. Change has come. Good or bad, change has come.

On this cold January 20 when the country inaugurated its 44th president, and its first African-American president, when more than two million people were estimated to be in Washington, D.C, and an estimated five billion people around the world watched on their television sets, much does remain to be seen. The future, as always, is unknown, waiting to reveal itself to us a day at a time.

President Barack Obama now occupies the white house, the conclusion of a long, hard, expensive, exhausting battle against talented people of both political parties. He has won. But now the real battle begins, the battle to move the most powerful nation on earth out of a quagmire of economic quicksand while attempting to take a firm and victorious stand against those who seek to destroy this country and the values it stands for.

The new president does not have an easy task ahead of him. His supporters have made the challenge he faces so much greater than it already is by expecting so much from him. He is only one man. He cannot do all that is expected of him. Many, certainly, will be disappointed because of their unrealistic expectations.

But he is one man, and he can do many things. That is what remains to be seen. What will President Obama do?

How will he handle the economic nightmare that has toppled housing and jobs like so many dominoes? How will he reduce the growing unemployment in the nation? How will we get the critical housing market moving again? How will he do all these things without increasing the tax burden on America’s citizens?

How will he get medical care costs under control? How will he make treatment for illness affordable? How will he reduce the threat to families from a grossly bloated health care system? How will he get the medical profession, insurance companies and the government to work together to make health care possible for more Americans? How will he do this without increasing the tax burden on American citizens?

How will he deal with the terribly frightening prospect of a nuclear-powered Iran? How will he deal with terrorist organizations that are willing to use their own children’s schools as military sites from which to launch rockets into Israel, and then cry foul when Israel defends itself by bombing those schools? How will he deal with the growing threat the world’s terrorist organizations are not only to this country, but to all the world? What will he do when diplomacy with those who have stated that “Israel is an offense to God,” fails?

Will Mr. Obama be the president of all the people, black, white, Christian, Jew, Muslim, agnostic, atheist? Will he be the president of both the liberals and the conservatives? Will he hand a victory to those who believe a woman has a right to an abortion, or will he support those who believe the unborn have the right to live? Will he act in favor of those who believe any two human beings can marry, or will he recognize those who argue that marriage must always be one man and one woman? Will he work for those who believe an embryo can be destroyed to provide material for stem-cell research, or will he fall in with those who believe human life is sacred and that the unborn should not be sacrificed to improve the lives of those already living?

The slate is clean. The writing on it is yet to be done. Mr. Obama has four years, perhaps eight to reveal what he will do as president. His promises have yet to become decisions, his speeches have yet to become legislation, his dreams have yet to become realities. We, that is, the world, divided as it is, divided as it always has been, will be watching.

And many of us will be doing one more thing. We will be praying that God will give President Obama the wisdom to do what is right, not just what is popular with those who subscribe to the failed ideologies of a political party.