Arizona Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake said at a Christian political event Friday night in Phoenix that she experienced a spiritual awakening during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“I handed my life over to God, 100 percent. Not 50 percent, I’ve done that before. Where it’s like, ‘Okay God. I’ve got you there when I need you. I’m just going to be in control, because I know how to be in control,’” she told “Flashpoint Live” host Gene Bailey at a live taping of the program at Dream City Church.
“I just said, ‘God you are in control. Take me where you want me to go’ and look where I ended up,” added Lake, who left her 30-year career in television news in the spring of 2021 and not long thereafter launched her bid to be the Grand Canyon State’s 24th governor.
The moment of truth came for Lake when she was anchoring a news broadcast from her home during COVID.
“I remember the day. I looked down and I had my news scripts over here and the Bible over here. I was at home, so I was reading the Bible. As a fifty-something year old I was starting to re-read the Bible,” she recounted.
“And I was in a commercial break and I was reading the Bible, and I had to go back to reading the news scripts and I thought, ‘Wow, this is the truth and these are the lies.,'” Lake said.
Lake’s interview begins at approximately the 1 hour and 7 minute mark in the video below:
Lake told Bailey on Friday while it’s true there are some “feel good” stories on news programs, there are “a lot of lies” being reported.
“We have to use discernment. We have to pray to God for discernment right now,” she said.
Lake related that after leaving her job, people began reaching out to her and encouraging her to run for office.
After Lake declared her candidacy for governor, the required number of signatures came in in just three weeks, unlike the months it typically takes for candidates, she explained.
“It’s truly not about me. It’s about us, ‘We the people,'” Lake said. “I think it’s a movement that God’s involved with, I really do.”
“He’s asking us to use our skills,” she continued. “My skill was that I understand Arizona. I understand the issues. I know the people. They know me. He gave me the ability to have some name recognition, because he granted me a beautiful career where I was able to earn that trust with people. And he said, ‘This is where I want you right now.’”
‘It’s not me, it’s about us. This is a movement God is involved in,’ says @KariLake at Flashpoint Live. @KariLakeWarRoom #KariLake pic.twitter.com/CgOxKAubPB
— Olivia Brown?? (@oliviaintheusa) October 22, 2022
Western Journal founder Floyd Brown — who participated in a panel discussion with Lake following her one-on-one interview — said he sees some parallels between her and Ronald Reagan, whose campaign he worked for in 1980. Brown later served in the Reagan administration.
Lake and Reagan were born within miles of each other in Illinois, worked at the same news station in Davenport, Iowa, early in their careers, enjoyed a 30-or-so-year career in the news media/entertainment, then ran for governor as their first political office sought in their early-mid 50s.
Thousands of cheers at the Flashpoint Live Phoenix event as @KariLake takes the stage!
This movement is unlike any other, fueled by the power of God 100%, for when He is with us, who can be against us? @KariLakeWarRoom @GoVictoryTV pic.twitter.com/4ANbdnd4dH
— Anthony DeWitt (@AnthonyDeWitt7) October 22, 2022
Lake described Reagan as her political hero and the reason she registered as a Republican at 18 years old while he was in office.
“Ronald Reagan made every decision based on what’s right and what’s wrong, and that’s what we need in leaders, a moral compass,” she said.
Brown responded that Reagan, when presented with a myriad of problems while in office, found himself looking to God for the answers.
Bailey asked Lake to discuss what her faith means to her.
“It means everything,” she answered.
Lake elaborated saying she is grateful her spiritual heritage growing up in Iowa, where her parents introduced their family to the Bible and “everybody went to Sunday school.”
Lake was forthright that she has turned to God in difficult times, but he was kind of in the back seat until her spiritual awakening during COVID.
“The world was upside down,” she noted.
“I had an old, dusty Bible sitting on my desk that I hadn’t picked up for a while. I hadn’t really read the Bible since I was younger, going through religious studies,” Lake said.
“I picked that up and started reading it and I thought, ‘Oh my gosh. All of the problems we’re facing right now, there’s help for us, solutions in the Bible,” she added.
Lake decided it was time to get back to church, but her family’s place of worship was shut down at the time. A friend invited her to an evangelical “mega-church” that was open.
“For the first time in my life, I felt Jesus right there in that church. I know that sounds crazy, because I’ve read the Bible. I’ve been through Sunday school. I’ve done all that stuff,” she said.
“For the first time in my life, I felt that Holy Spirit, so powerful. The first three times I went to that church, I cried,” Lake recalled. “Is that normal to cry at church? That never happened to me before.”
“I really had a reawakening during COVID on many levels, but spiritually, I found my spiritual home, and I’m so thankful for that. God is just so good. He takes something as tough as we went through with COVID and he finds a way to transform us,” she said.
Hal and Cheryl Sacks, influential Christian leaders in Arizona, were encouraged by the “Flashpoint Live” two-day event.
Hal told The Western Journal Thursday, “It’s not a political movement, it’s a spiritual movement, and we are to be actively involved in every arena, including government.”
“America is going to be filled with someone’s values and morals, why not believers? We are supposed to be salt and light,” Cheryl said. “We want to see a great spiritual awakening.”
“We are supposed to be salt and light…We want to see a great spiritual awakening,” Christian leader Cheryl Sacks told @WestJournalism at the recent @GoVictoryTV “Flashpoint Live” event in Phoenix. pic.twitter.com/XqQEv5LkUD
— Randy DeSoto (@RandyDeSoto) October 25, 2022
Bailey closed Friday’s program by pointing out that America’s covenant with God goes back to the founding. The Declaration of Independence mentions God four times. Believers sought his aid in the war for independence. George Washington, when being sworn as the nation’s first president, placed his hand on the Bible and pledged to fulfill the duties of his office, “So help me God.”
Washington then offered a prayer to God in his inaugural address, saying, “[I]t would be peculiarly improper to omit in this first official Act, my fervent supplications to that Almighty Being who rules over the Universe, who presides in the Councils of Nations, and whose providential aids can supply every human defect, that his benediction may consecrate to the liberties and happiness of the People of the United States, a Government instituted by themselves for these essential purposes.”
Bailey recited a portion of Thomas Paine’s famous first essay in the American Crisis series, published in December 1776. Then-General Washington had it read to his troops before the victorious Battle of Trenton and after the Continental Army had experienced several losses.
“These are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman,” Paine wrote.
“Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph,” he continued.
“What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as FREEDOM should not be highly rated.”
Bailey proclaimed the founders’ vision still defines what it means to be an American: “That’s who we are. That’s who you are.”
He exhorted those in attendance that they’ve been commissioned and deployed to win the world for Jesus and take the nation back.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
