Election Anxiety

This presidential election has many Americans anxious and bewildered.   For various reasons, both of the likely presidential candidates strike fear in the hearts of many citizens.  This is an election unlike any I’ve witnessed—protesters disrupting rallies and lining the campaign trail, violence among dissenting Americans, and people so ready for economic change.  In short, the anger observed by so many commentators and politicians alike arises from fear.  We’re afraid there will be no social security when we retire, afraid of terrorist attacks, afraid of the dwindling job market, afraid of the decline we’re seeing in education, etc.  We’re angry because we’re afraid.

Obviously it’s necessary for the citizens of a democracy to make their voice heard when they’re upset about the status quo, but for the Christian, the 2016 election doesn’t have to leave us in a state of hand-wringing worry.  I’ve been thinking a lot lately about all of the benefits offered to us as children of God.  One of those benefits is security.  In Christ we’re offered a security that frees us from anxiety regarding the future and gives us the ultimate sense of safety.

In recent days meditating on the eternal kingship of Jesus has brought me great comfort.  By Jesus all things were created, things that are visible and those that are invisible, whether thrones or dominions, or rulers, or authorities.  In fact, they were created through him and for him (Col. 1:16)!  The Scriptures tell us that Jesus is seated at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers having been subjected to him (1 Peter 3:22).   Our God is the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords (1 Timothy 6:15).   There is no ruler who operates outside of his sovereign oversight.  The hearts of earthly kings are a stream of water in the hand of the Lord; he turns it where he will (Proverbs 21:1).  It’s so good to turn off CNN for a bit and lift our gaze to the eternal reality.

We have a God who is not only the most powerful being in the cosmos, but he has wed his sovereign goodness to our aid.  In Deuteronomy, Moses is on the verge of death and the Israelite people are on the verge of the Promised Land.   He blesses them by saying, “There is none like God, O [Israel], who rides through the heavens to your help, through the skies in his majesty.  The eternal God is your dwelling place, and underneath are the everlasting arms” (Deuteronomy 33:26-27).  He pursues us with goodness and mercy (Psalm 23:6).  And as John Piper asserts, “He is help and he is home—eternal home. When you come home to him, you are home forever. He cannot be burned down, or blown down, or broken into, or foreclosed on. In him we live and move and have our being. Coming to him is coming home—forever.”

This image of God’s everlasting arms reminds me of the way my husband cradled our newborns. What a beautiful picture to see such a small, vulnerable infant held by strong, able arms.  No danger to the baby is a match for her father’s loving embrace.

I want to see America be great again and I want to see America be whole again, but come what may via ISIS, international trade agreements, social security, tax rates, Supreme Court appointments, and climate change, my life is found securely in Christ.  I’m hidden in him.  He is my provision, protection, and sure-footing.  Government is not my god.

So, by all means, let your voice be heard and VOTE!  …and then put down your pen and rest in His everlasting arms.