The king's heart is in the hand of the LORD; he directs it like a watercourse wherever he pleases (Proverbs 21:1).

The Dutch are masters of engineering, particularly when it comes to the management of water.  They have centuries of experience with dikes and canals and pumps and windmills.  "God made the world," they say, "but the Dutch made Holland."  So it only stands to reason that a watercourse is a top attraction at a number of playgrounds in the city of Amsterdam (I've seen such a watercourse once in the USA, too, so it's not an exclusively Dutch concept -- though it is, still, by all accounts distinctively Dutch).  At the top of an incline, or on a raised platform in a corner of the playground, there is a hand-cranked water pump.  Up-and-down or round-and-round (depending on the pump) the children can produce the water from its underground source, so that it can spill over into the rest of the watercourse, where the real fun awaits.  Some water courses have chutes and levers that can be directed with chains or with the hand, to dramatically alter the direction of the water flowing out from the pump.  But other water courses are purely sand.  With shovels and sticks, the children at the playground can carve out canals and canyons.  With the sand that is dug up, they can create mountains and dams.  They can direct the water to flow wherever they please, until it drains out of the cleverly-engineered play space.  Will it be one big lake?  Or more of a raging river?  What would happen if you put a fork in the channel, so that there were two channels sloping downward side-by-side?  What if you just made a huge dam and reservoir right beneath the pump and the water kept coming and coming, with nowhere to go?  As you can imagine, a playground watercourse can keep kids (and adults) engaged for hours!

But isn't it crazy to think that the king's heart can be just as easily manipulated and redirected in the hand of the LORD?  Doesn't it feel impossible to consider a government being as adaptable and flexible as a playground watercourse?  Could this really be true of Geert Wilders -- the right-wing Dutch politician who is primarily known for his intolerance and uncompromising position on immigration issues?  Could this really be true of Nancy Pelosi -- liberal American congresswoman (and Speaker of the House), who has made a name for herself as a bastion of liberal policy and strong-armed director of voting blocs?  Is Proverbs 21:1 actually applicable to these modern-day "kings?"

I believe so.  Of course, it's frustrating that the hearts of such rulers are in God's hands -- not mine.  It's a natural limitation of even the most representative forms of government that my individual role in enacting change is quite limited.  At the same time, I sincerely believe that God is not limited in any way -- and He really is able to direct the hearts of even the most inflexible rulers, just as easily as children on a Dutch playground directing their watercourse.  Our role in all this is prayer, not direction or disputing (1 Timothy 2:1-8).  God will do the directing in His time and according to His plan.  But this is a good thing.  God's plan is so wonderful and wise and well-considered that it makes even the most marvelous instances of Dutch engineering look like child's play.