Watching the voting results come in, I see one thing clearly: we truly are a nation divided. When you see percentages like 47% Biden, 48% Trump, you know that this isn’t just a “some like him, some don’t” scenario. This is a sharply drawn line.
I have Christian friends on both sides of the line. They can all argue their stances eloquently. They can all justify their votes. None of them are interested in switching sides. Being that this election is going to come down to the wire, as they say, there is legitimate concern that the results will not be accepted peacefully.
We are all tired. 2020 has been one for the books, and its swath of devastation hasn’t slowed in November. If you haven’t been brought to your knees yet, perhaps it’s time to fall there. If 2020 has brought us no other good, the one thing it has screamed at us is that it’s time to make Jesus great again.
We’ve voted. We’ve done our civic duty. The results are out of our hands, but not out of our hearts. The best thing we can do right now is pray for our nation and for whatever man will lead us. The only way we can do that purely is to let go of the hatred, the anxiety, the willfulness – whatever it is that is keeping us from focusing on God – and humble ourselves at His feet.
As parents, we know what it’s like to watch our children fight. Inevitable? Yes. Desirable? No. Imagine how Jesus feels watching his children fight, daily, for years. This isn’t a “Mom! He touched me!” squabble, either. This is a full-on, “I can’t believe you think that and I despise you for it” obliteration of friends and family members. Imagine His pain as he watches our fall. Imagine what it is doing to our relationship with Him.
We have to make Jesus great again. Our political leader is not Jesus. His opponent is not Jesus. The government is not our sovereign king. Our friends are not our enemies. We have allowed ourselves to be sucked into the rhetoric, our hearts twisted, our brains shut down. We’ve forgotten who’s most important, who is supposed to be in our souls, a constant reminder that He’s holding us in His loving arms. That all we need to do is turn to Him and He will protect us.
As I write this morning, we are without an answer as to who will lead our country moving forward. I have to trust that God has this. At 2:00 am when I couldn’t watch anymore, I closed my eyes and asked God to protect our country. I’m not at peace yet and won’t be until we know what we are dealing with for the next four years. But the simple act of praying, of reminding myself that God’s will will be done, gave me some measure of peace.
Whatever happens next, we need to not only shift our focus but shift our trust to the place it deserves to be: on Jesus alone. He has a plan. If you’ve lived long enough, you know that the plan rarely makes sense at its onset. Over time, it reveals itself. We have to have faith that God’s plan for our country will be exactly what we need to make Jesus great again.
