The term turning points has become something of a buzzword lately. It shows up regularly in media and the news. Several books have been published under that title, and at least one magazine bears that name.

The term generally refers to the time in a situation at which a decisive change takes place—the point at which the situation changes in a definitive way.

Historians can point to any number of turning points in history where peoples and nations made dramatic and pronounced course changes—some for the better and some for the worse.

Some wonder whether the unexpected election of Donald Trump as president of the United States might signal such a turning point. After all, he ran as the anti-Obama, anti-Hillary, anti-left candidate.

Mr. Trump promised to roll back executive orders and legislation on a vast range of programs and policies ranging from health care to illegal immigration to climate change. He vowed to appoint strict constitutionalists to the U.S. Supreme Court, build a wall on the southern border, bring back overseas jobs, rebuild the U.S. military and “make America great again.”

Taking a page from former President Ronald Reagan, Trump pledged to “drain the swamp in Washington” and “make our government honest again.” While many of his campaign promises appear to be clear examples of overreach, a number of his cabinet appointees indicate that he is deadly serious about changing the ways of Washington and altering the trajectory of the nation.

And the trajectory of the nation certainly needs to be altered!

Over recent years America has experienced great harm from the imposition of policies and laws that directly contradict biblical values and teachings. President Obama’s signature health care legislation, among other things, forced employers to pay for abortion-inducing drugs for employees—essentially forcing business owners to finance the murder of the unborn.

The U.S. Justice Department ordered all schools nationwide to allow students to use whatever restrooms they felt appropriate for their preferred gender, regardless of the reality of their biological sex—with no government concern at all expressed for students who didn’t wish to share restrooms or locker rooms with students of the opposite sex.

The federal government has aggressively pushed a pro-homosexual agenda, creating a legal climate in which cake-bakers, wedding venue providers and wedding photographers have seen their businesses ruined simply for following their consciences (based on biblical values) and not joining in celebrations of homosexual marriage.

Then there was the horror of the revelation that Planned Parenthood, recipient of half a billion dollars annually in government funds, was collecting and selling body parts from aborted babies. (Planned Parenthood is America’s largest abortion provider, taking the lives of some 300,000 unborn infants each year.)

In the pages of Beyond Today we’ve regularly covered these and other issues where governments have pushed laws, regulations and policies that directly oppose God’s will and truth. And we will continue to do so as part of our effort to teach the world the true values of our Creator and why the world is in such an abysmal state.

Our hope is that all nations might experience some kind of positive turning point and not experience the continuing, escalating problems we have brought on ourselves due to turning from God.

Notice that God Himself expresses the same hope of a positive turn for us in Ezekiel 33:11: “Say to them: ‘As I live,’ says the Lord God, ‘I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live. Turn, turn from your evil ways! For why should you die . . . ?’

Why, indeed? God offers each of us a turning point, nationally and individually. “I call heaven and earth as witnesses today against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life, that both you and your descendants may live” (Deuteronomy 30:19).

May we all have the wisdom to hear and heed!