A New Day
by Steve Watters on 09/07/2007 at 3:16 PM
As election season gets cranked up more earnestly in the United States, I'm reminded of the post I entered after last November's election. At that time, several issues and candidates that had been positioned as pro-Christian and pro-family were defeated.
Last night was a long night for people who care about issues like the sanctity of life, the sanctity of marriage, freedom of religious expression and other faith and family issues. What are we supposed to make of the mixed results of various ballot initiatives and races in which these issues were in the spotlight? We can expect lots of political commentary in the next few days proclaiming winners and losers and predicting trends and reactions, but what lies beyond the political?
People of faith can still trust that God is in control and that He hasn't lost our file. We can also be reminded that God works through means -- that He still calls us to be responsible citizens who are active in our representational government, regardless of what direction the political winds are blowing.
I have a bad habit of watching election results in the same way I watch my favorite football and basketball teams -- reading way too much into both wins and losses. At least with election results, however, I'm reminded that we all have the opportunity to be much more than Monday morning quarterbacks. It's a new day and we all have the opportunity to get back out on the field to compete with excellence in the work God's called us to do.
Christian Americans can point to both wins and losses in the public arena since I wrote this post, but the truth remains that we can't read too much into either -- we can't give up with each setback and we can't assume any victory earns us a long vacation from civic involvement.
1. Seth said the following at 8:46 AM on Sep 9:
Thankfully, even when ungodly men and women are elected to office we have a great reassurance from God's Word:
"The king's heart is in the hand of the Lord, as the rivers of water; he turneth it whithersoever he will." -Proverb 21:1, KJV.
God can break the hardest hearts. He is certainly in control, as you pointed out.
2. Carrie said the following at 7:28 AM on Sep 10:
I don't get how you can read "too much" into election results. I don't think people pay enough attention to the whole election process, myself included. Each major election (I include senate races and the like in the "major election" category) I seek to give more attention to it than I did the last one.
In the senate races I was paying very close attention to the Tennessee senate race (Corker/Ford) mainly because I spend most of my waking hours in TN (I live on the GA/TN border) and that particular senate race was receiving a lot of national attention.
the morning after the election when it was realized that Corker emerged as the winner, I heard a CNN commentator say that Ford lost because he was black. Since TN is the buckle of the Bible belt, there are many TN citizens that wouldn't vote for a Democrat if their life depended on it. Ford didn't lose because he was black, he lost because he was a Democrat.
So now I've been pushed even more to pay attention to elections because your integrity is on display for the whole world to see.
The primary elections will be interesting. I'm having extremely conservative friends considering the possibility of voting for Hillary Clinton in the general election should she end up as the Democratic candidate. This will be an interesting election season, very interesting.
3. BB said the following at 10:57 AM on Sep 10:
The more I think about it, I recall communist China and the fire in the church there. You know they have a goal over there to be the largest missionary country in the world. The way they are going, it will happen. I wonder if loosing our freedoms will allow us to realize how lucky we are to be able to worship God in the open.