Today’s election will have significant consequences. From the White House to Congress, SCOTUS ramifications and on down the ballot. Our nation is electing leaders and we’ll live with those decisions, as well as their repercussions, for some years. As a political consultant, coach and activist, I work hard to influence those outcomes and understand well the cost of poor leadership. But as a Christian, I understand a greater truth.
Every election day (and on a near daily basis through this election cycle), I open my Bible to Psalm 146 and remind myself where my trust resides. It’s not in Presidents, Congress or the Supreme Court. No elected or appointed man, woman or assembly is imbued with my faith. Not any candidate I’ve worked for, or the guy we worked hard to beat. My trust is in higher things.
1 Praise ye the Lord. Praise the Lord, o my soul. 2 While I live I will praise the Lord: I will sing praises unto my God while I have any being. 3. Put not your trust in princes, nor in the son of man, in whom there is no help. 4 His breath goes forth, he returneth to his earth; in that very day his thoughts perish. 5 Happy is he that hath the God of Jacob for his help, whose hope is in the Lord his God: 6 Which made heaven, and earth, the sea, and all that therein is: which keepeth truth for ever: 7 Which executeth judgement for the oppressed: which giveth food to the hungry. The Lord looseth the prisoners: 8 The Lord openeth the eyes of the blind: the Lord raiseth them that are bowed down: the Lord loveth the righteous: 9 The Lord preserveth the strangers; he relieveth the fatherless and widow: but the way of the wicked is turned upside down. 10 The Lord shall reign for ever, even they God, O Zion, unto all generations. Praise ye the Lord. (Psalm 146 KJV)... Whomever is elected tonight, our duty continues tomorrow. We are called to glorify God and enjoy Him forever…not just when our guy gets elected, tax rates are low or the economy is growing.
We’re charged in 1 Peter 3:15, “But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear.” It’s a pre-requisite to this passage that we live our lives in such a way that people will ASK why we have hope!
Whatever happens tonight, get up tomorrow with even greater focus on shining God’s light in the world around you than you have today. Work harder to positively influence the people and nation around you. Let’s live our lives in such a way that people are compelled to ask where our hope comes from.
I will sleep well because the ends do not justify the means. The means are everything.
He has shown you, O man, what is good; And what does the Lord require of you But to do justly, To love mercy, And to walk humbly with your God? ~ Micah 6:8I will sleep well because I am not responsible for the outcome, only my own actions.
And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose. ~ Romans 8:28I will sleep well because I did not join in the glorying of sin, but I helped expose the corruption.
I wrote to you in my epistle not to keep company with sexually immoral people. Yet I certainly did not mean with the sexually immoral people of this world, or with the covetous, or extortioners, or idolaters, since then you would need to go out of the world. But now I have written to you not to keep company with anyone named a brother, who is sexually immoral, or covetous, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or an extortioner—not even to eat with such a person.I will sleep well because I accept the authority of God and the authority of government.
For what have I to do with judging those also who are outside? Do you not judge those who are inside? But those who are outside God judges. Therefore “put away from yourselves the evil person.” ~ 1 Corinthians 5:9-12
Let every soul be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and the authorities that exist are appointed by God. Therefore whoever resists the authority resists the ordinance of God, and those who resist will bring judgment on themselves. For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to evil. Do you want to be unafraid of the authority? Do what is good, and you will have praise from the same. ~ Romans 13:1-3I will sleep well because I know these words are true.
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. ~ Genesis 1:1We are here for a purpose much greater than voting for a candidate, or advocating for this law or that law. The exactness, utter accuracy, inerrancy and nature of the universe that produced us did not place us here by chance.
Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me. ~ John 14:6
The three billion base pairs of DNA-encoded information which contain our design, plans and operating software were not produced by some counter-entropic emergent complex system any more than a table set with candles, tablecloth and wine appearing on Mars would be explained as pure accident.
No matter whose name comes out on top of today’s election, knowing that I have a purpose, a maker, and a clear measure of my duty to love and share truth with my fellow humans is a good reason for me (and you) to sleep very, very well.
Amen.
H/t: TheResurgent
