What Did We Just Do? Elect the Right President?

The election was trivial and meaningless. Did I get your attention? Before I unpack that statement, please allow me to share some reflections and observations from this election season.

Observations

As followers of Jesus and citizens of the United States, we have the privilege of voting for our elected leaders and the obligation to pray for them.

This election further exposed the divisions in the country and in the church. While many Christians voted for the President, many were passionate about voting him out of office. And nearly everyone was convinced of who we should elect to this office. This divide of opinions has been well explained by Timothy Dalrymple in this article.

I don’t want to debate the merits of voting either way in this post. When I survey my many friends on various social media accounts, I have found them to be of all political persuasions. I have sincere Christian friends who strongly opposed the current administration and couldn’t understand why any Christian could support the President. I have other Christian friends who have no idea why a Christians wouldn’t support him. I will testify that both sides love God, follow Jesus with their whole being and serve faithfully in the kingdom of God.

My prayer is that we could find grace to extend and self-control to guard our words and actions so that we might not offend our brothers and sisters in Christ.

Over the next few months, things will begin to change in Washington. We will feel some the ripples of that change. But the most important things in the life of the follower of Jesus will not change.

Here are four important things that the person we elect does not change.

What This Election Doesn’t Change

Who we follow

No matter who we elect as President of this country (or the leader of any country), we still follow Jesus. He is our leader, our guide, our example. He alone dictates how we should act, what we should do and say and what needs to change in our lives. No political leader on the face of the earth that has ever been or ever will be has the power to change that.

Where our allegiance lies

While we should all participate and elect any leader that is running, it is always wrong and will always be wrong to swear our allegiance to any earthly leader or political party. Our absolute loyalty belongs to God. If we truly follow, we are willing to abandon any earthly leader, if that is God’s will. We will be obedient to God’s call, no matter what opposition we face. We recognize that only One is worthy of complete loyalty and surrender. We submit to the rule of God absolutely. No matter who sits in the seat of power in our country, the focus of our lives is Jesus.

How we love

Sadly, some have nearly forgotten to love. My heart breaks when I see bitter and angry words posted on social media by Christians, aimed at other Christians and those who don’t share their political views. This is not the way of love. It is so much wiser and more loving to keep those feelings to ourselves, submit them to God’s rule and express love instead. So often, as Americans, we think we have the right to speak our minds. But the rule of the Kingdom of God supersedes our earthly rights. We don’t have the right to hurt others with our words. We don’t have the right to slander and belittle those with whom we disagree.

We must continue to love one another. When we live under the power of the Spirit of God, no difference of political opinion has the power to extinguish the love of God that flows through our lives.

Our flawed perspective

We are all convinced our perspective is right. After all, we wouldn’t knowingly believe what we know is wrong! However, our perspective is a product of the sum total of our life’s experiences.

Our perspective is flawed because it is finite. Think of it this way. When you look at the front of my house, you see a couple of garage doors, my front door, two large windows and two small windows. This can’t tell you the floorplan of my house. You can guess what is behind those windows but you won’t know until you step inside. With many things our perspective is like one who has not stepped inside.

The best thing we can do with this is to acknowledge that our perspective isn’t complete. Even though our perspective is all we have, we have the power to expand that perspective. Sadly, I have witnessed many Christians striving to narrow their perspective by refusing to listen to any but their own.

Get Serious Now!

I would challenge followers of Jesus to do the hard work of opening themselves up to other perspectives regarding this election. Pray, allow the Spirit to guide you, listen with an open mind, acknowledge the limited nature of your perspective and allow the expression of contrary perspectives into your own.

Above all, embrace the reality that the Kingdom of God transcends political parties, racial divides, language barriers, economic divides and national borders. The political decisions of today are transient, temporal. The realities of the Kingdom of God are eternal.

Let every follower of Jesus embrace the realities of our eternal and all powerful kingdom and of our great King and put our petty temporal political differences aside so we might labor together in the work God has called us to.