"Daniel answered and said: "Blessed be the name of God forever and ever, to whom belong wisdom and might.  He changes times and seasons; he removes kings and sets up kings; he gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to those who have understanding..." (Dan 2:20-21, ESV)

"The sentence is by the decree of the watchers, the decision by the word of the holy ones, to the end that the living may know that the Most High rules the kingdom of men and gives it to whom he will and sets over it the lowliest of men." (Dan 4:17, ESV)

"It is I who by my great power and my outstretched arm have made the earth, with the men and animals that are on the earth, and I give it to whomever it seems right to me." (Jer. 27:5, ESV)

Many Christians, particularly those who would call themselves "evangelical," have been praying that John McCain would win the election.  Well, it wasn't even close.  McCain was certainly not one of the favorites of the evangelicals during the primaries and the fact that such a prayer even happened is a funny twist of Providence.  If you'll remember, his campaign was practically bankrupt late last year.  He benefited from the campaign flops by Rudy Giuliani and Fred Thompson and the "friendly fire" Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee expended on each other.  He has always been a survivor.  If anyone were to look for a life story of someone who was destined to be President and do something pivotal in history, McCain's would make a great script.  Surviving shoot-downs, accidents, and the Hanoi Hilton to come home and build a long Senate career and then finally survive a difficult primary in order to run against a compelling, but unknown, opponent is the stuff of movies.

On the other side, the Invisible Hand seems to be at work in Barack Obama's rise.  Until 2004, he was a young, Illinois state senator.  He would have likely stayed such, but the Republican favored to win the US Senate seat from Illinois had a nasty divorce and ended up dropping out, leaving the Republicans without a credible candidate.  The election was a cakewalk for Obama.  Along comes the 2008 primary and like McCain, Obama starts out way behind.  He certainly piqued the interest of many, but he was so young and nobody could possibly defeat the well-oiled machine of Bill and Hillary Clinton.  It turned out that the machine had a factory defect--Bill Clinton.  His mouth, combined with losses on Super Tuesday gave Obama the traction he needed to hang onto a lead to the end and slay the Clinton dragon.

And so we got through the conventions with two candidates who could claim that the Invisible Hand was guiding them to the Presidency.  Then a meteor hit Wall Street and trillions of dollars in assets went to money heaven, or in the case of the lower-rated assets, money hell.  McCain was successfully tacking against a headwind of negative sentiment for Republicans, but got swamped by the rogue wave on Wall Street and foundered.  The glimmer of a miracle appeared in the last weeks, but it was not to be, and he went to the bottom with all hands aboard.  So, if God has ordained Obama to be the President, to what purpose?  He does nothing without some greater purpose in mind.  We shall see in the coming years whether that purpose was for good or ill.