Could Donald Trump be for the USA what Michael Gorbachov was for Russia? That’s a popular view in Russia currently. While Trump’s election was greeted warmly in Moscow, digging a little deeper we find that all is not as benign as it seems.
It turns out that many in the Kremlin feel that a Trump presidency might bring about the collapse of America. That the USA is in the final stage of its history is not a new idea in Russia.
Nikolai Patrushev, one of Mr. Putin’s key advisers, said in an interview with Rossiyskaya Gazeta, that he expected the United States would split into North and South, with the South moving “toward Mexico, whose lands were seized by Americans in 1848,” he said.
That might sound laughable to us in the USA. But you have to admit that, viewed from afar, the fractures in American society can easily be seen to be beyond the point of no return. And many Russian advisers and officials see the recent American film “Civil War,” which depicts California and Texas seceding, with bloodshed erupting across the nation, as a reflection of how Americans see their near future.
The movie was released in Russia under the title “The Fall of the Empire”. Dmitri Medvedev, former president of Russia, remarked on his Telegram channel that he took it as proof that civil war in the United States is inevitable. “Hollywood doesn’t make films about it for no reason”, he said.
Let’s not forget how close to home this can hit for Russians and their leadership. In the lifetime of many of us, Russia was the head of a vast empire, the USSR. But it collapsed in the 1990’s and that’s seen by much of the leadership there as the greatest failure ever to hit their motherland. Putin is fully known to see it that way.
And who immediately preceded the collapse of the USSR? Michael Gorbachov. I lived for a year in Moscow in the mid 90’s and it struck me as strange how many Russians viewed Gorbachov back then. It was a common belief there that he may have been a CIA plant. For one, friends said, the way Gorbachov spoke Russian was suspicious; it didn’t sound right, they said. And the end result of his rule is seen by so many as a vast failure and catastrophe for the nation.
But he rose to power through the ranks of the Soviet government, having what was a good track record and he intended to shake things up. Glasnost and Perestoika it was called. However, the end result was far from what those in power were intending. The shake ups and radical reforms turned into a death knell and collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Russian empire. In the corridors of power in the Kremlin now, Trump is seen as a likely Gorbachov for the declining empire of America.
As the good Lord said, “A nation divided against itself cannot stand” (Mark 3:24). And nothing pleases a predator more than to find potential meals fighting amongst themselves. Reflecting on these current views of America, it’s hard not to feel the Russians have a point.
To officials in the Kremlin, Gorbachev was a self-absorbed narcissist who loved to talk — a man without a plan, a strategy or any clear understanding of his goals, a politician who undermined core institutions that supported the state and left only chaos in his wake. And they see the current president-elect here as playing a similar role.
Well, it’s an interesting viewpoint and it all remains to be seen. But it just helps sometimes to see ourselves as others see us. Particularly in this time of hyper-partisanship, when we are forced at every turn to choose between the hard right and the extreme left. Is the American dream and empire about to fall? We’ve heard that before and still, here we are.
I’m glad that my identity is rooted in Christian discipleship which should make it possible to rise above the chaos that is so enveloping here currently. I’m a providentialist, I believe I can and should accept what has transpired with the recent election while continuing to keep my foundation on the rock of Christ and God’s truth, rather than the roaring confusion that is so strong now.
[I should mention that some of the information and views expressed in this article come from an editorial in the New York Times, written by Mikhail Zygar, a Russian journalist.]
“Time heals all wounds”, right? Actually, lots of people have found that not to be true. You hardly talk to your kids and they don’t talk to you. Someone says “I hate you!” and that becomes the new state of affairs. And as things flash forward 20 or 30 years, you find that you basically hardly even have a family but just a permanent state of extreme estrangement.
I don’t care what you’ve accomplished, how big your house or bank account is, how famous you are or what kind of car you drive. If your family has little or no accord, if the times you come together don’t have warmth and love, if there are no hugs and kisses, even tears, then I think it’s hard to have real peace and joy in your heart. Something will be eating away at your soul that you didn’t really handle things so well, you didn’t come through it all with the kind of accomplishments in life that matter the most.
since 
But eclipses don’t last forever. Mine didn’t. Perhaps a secret for me was that I knew God and His son Jesus. And They are able to deliver us from the lowest hell. It was that faith, that God was bigger than my circumstances, that gave me the grace to just hold on and keep praying through a time like I’d never gone through before.
me” didn’t get a knife stuck through it and become all sliced up, like my physical body did. It helped so very much to have a Christian perspective on it all and that “me”, me physically as well as my heart and soul were experiencing this. But through it all, the actual real me inside was doing pretty good and something really positive was happening. The cramped, pinched spinal column was being fixed by real experts. That was very good, even if it was a traumatic experience to go though physically, with an operation like that.
For years, I’ve been doing Facebook advertising of the videos I’ve done in many languages. So this “pause” from Facebook stopped my ministry to millions of folks.
Turns out that she had worked for some time in the Meta company, which owns Facebook. I told her my plight and she said she might know someone on the inside. Things moved fast after that and in 10 days my account was restored. To me this was just an astounding miracle when I saw no way I was going to be able to contact anyone in Facebook to get my account back on.
but there’d been no lightning nearby. My laptop was destroyed, my router, modem, the printer, the aircon system in the house and wiring under the house, all were knocked out. Replacing the laptop, which is what I do the video editing and website work on, was a big deal. Thankfully none of us were hurt and the house and cars were not hit. But getting back to where I could work on videos and do editing on a new computer took many weeks.
Two months after the lightning, I was holding on to a tree stump in my backyard that I’d held on to many times before. Suddenly it snapped and I was diving through the air towards the bottom of the garden. I guess I went close to 4 meters forward and 3 meters downward. The full force of the dive/fall was taken by my left hand which transferred up to my left shoulder. The result was that I had a major tear in my left shoulder, so much so that a rotor cuff surgery was not possible.
I’m awaiting an operation to replace my left shoulder joint at some point when it can be worked out.
Thankfully it was a relatively mild case but it continued through my visit to Scandinavia.
You thought that was all, right? Nope, I didn’t tell you the other traumas of September through December. I had two loose teeth and hadn’t been to the dentist in long time. Although I didn’t have any pain, I thought it would be good to get the loose teeth checked out. And dear God in His great Providence led me to some exceptionally competent, compassionate South American dentists not far from me.
II Tim 3:11 
Admittedly, this happens rarely in my life and probably most people seldom ever experience these things. Or if they do, many of us are dull to what is happening at the moment and don’t really catch what is going on. They/we experience these things but recognize how strange it is and that they/we can’t tell our friends or family because they won’t believe us. So they/we keep it to themselves, sometimes the rest of their/our lives.
Have you ever had an experience with an angel? Or demon? They both exist, now and in our present world. Sometimes the Lord wants to expand our horizons by letting us experience these things, to deepen us, to open our eyes to the mostly unseen real world we actually live in, and to make us stronger for him. “
“So, Mark, are you religious? Do you think that religion will solve the problems of the world today?”
I can see how that question asked by someone else, seeking to understand me better and what I stand for, might have said the same thing. In that case, it would be easy to hear the sincerity in their voice and in that situation I would have answered completely differently.
But maybe there you’ll find, as you pause, ponder and move away from the din and discord of the present, that there you’ll actually be better able to hear the “still, small voice” of God, like Elijah did when he fled alone to a mountain and there heard God’s voice. (I King 18:36).
Head to the hills! Go off grid! Or for some, just really withdrawing from all the tumult and shallowness of the present evil world and seeing if you can’t at least find some peace and sanity in your heart by withdrawing to “your tent”.
Most of the people at this get together had already viewed 
I felt led to pull together a list of blog articles that I’ve written over the last 10 years or so, touching on some of the most common questions that people have when it comes to the subject of what Jesus was referring to when He told His disciples, “
I’ll include here some of the articles that I shared with these ones, primarily related to questions people have about the return of the Lord. Often you can hear folks say, “Oh, 
A similar thing people say on this subject, and they quote Jesus, is this: “
And you may have heard someone surprisingly tell you something like, “Oh, Jesus actually returned to the earth in 70 AD!” How can you factually and tactfully reply to someone who is saying that? I shared this article with my friends on this subject and how they might respond. 
A question for many was, “How close are we?” “Can we tell in specifics how much longer it will be?” Big subject, big questions. Here’s what I shared about this, perhaps one of the articles that has been discussed the most,
I shared with them an article about my own experiences here over the last year or so involving the local school district I’m in and the battle there for the hearts and minds of the young people who go the schools near me. Here’s an article I shared with my friends about that. 
PS You might be interested to know what the atmosphere and mood was at a get-together like this of dedicated East European Christians. Seven years ago I was living in Romania and went to a similar gathering. Here’s an article I wrote about how that was.