Election Reflections

We've all had a week to mope or exult over the election, but now we should stop and think about the big picture. It's important to put this in the proper perspective.

When I was in college, our football team was doing pretty well. They hadn't lost a home game in many years and did pretty well on the road, too. The big game against our arch rivals was always over Thanksgiving, so one year I decided to skip going home for the holiday and stay for the game. I got to witness our football time, always victorious at home, just get shut down, losing to the devil themselves.

There was a tradition of singing one song after the game if we won, another if we lost. No one knew the losing song. There was stunned silence as students crowded onto the buses to leave the campus. Nothing was right with the world.

Then I heard something that snapped me back to reality: an ambulance siren. We were mourning the loss of a football game, but life in the real world was going on.

I do realize that the outcome of elections affects our lives somewhat more than the outcome of ball games, but even in politics, if your team wins or loses, that's not your entire world.

If your preferred candidate(s) lost the election, I don't think I have anything especially profound to offer you. The same advice everyone was giving those who were anxious leading up to the election still applies: God is still on his throne. God still raises up and tears down kings. We may not always enjoy the journey, but we know God is taking this world to the place it needs to go to reach the end he has planned.

So life isn't over. The worst has not happened. Trust God over the next four years, and pray that God will give our current leaders wisdom and give us better leaders in the future.

But I expect I'm talking more to the other group.

If your preferred candidate(s) won the election, all is not suddenly right with the world. The world is still broken. The lost are still lost. We're still in a struggle with the prince of the power of the air, that lion who seeks whom he may devour. The war continues, and we live on the battlefield.

If you think the world has gone crazy, remember that this didn't happen in the last four years or even in the last 20. It took us hundreds of years to get here. It happened under the watch of your team as well as the other team. It was happening all during the "good old days". The fight goes on. There is little chance the government will do anything to help. So we all need to trust God over the next four years, and pray that God will give our current leaders wisdom and give us better leaders in the future.

And if you're OK with the state of the culture war, if you think this is "the right side of history", we still live in a world with dirty water, starving people, fatherless children, and every other kind of pain and suffering you can name. We've got lots of work to do.

We're not looking for a particular president or political party. We're waiting for a King and his kingdom come, and until that day we're supposed to be living out his kingdom, showing people what life in it could be like, and inviting them in. Let's get to work.


Image via Flickr