Tuesday, November 04, 2008

Smile.


"The king’s heart is a stream of water in the hand of the LORD; He turns it wherever He will." -Proverbs 21:1

Sov"er*eign\ 1. Supreme or highest in power; superior to all others; chief; as, our sovereign prince. 2. Independent of, and unlimited by, any other; possessing, or entitled to, original authority or jurisdiction; as, a sovereign state; a sovereign discretion.

"But as for me, it is good to be near God. I have made the Sovereign LORD my refuge; I will tell of all Your deeds. -Psalm 73:28

Tomorrow, we'll all know the identity of our next president. As I type, people across the nation are anxiously awaiting the poll results. I'm not anti-politics; I've even done a bit of canvassing this year. But when I see Christians moaning about this election as though the outcome could somehow unravel our lives-- that concerns me deeply.

Why? Behind all the fear and the riled-up political conversations, I can hear the unspoken beliefs fueling them:

God is not great; a candidate can undo our lives. God's wisdom is not infinite. Depending on the direction of the polls, His sovereignty must have a major loophole. God cannot be trusted implicitly. He may mishandle our fragile futures. I am not in control here, and I cannot stand my helplessness.

When I see the ruckus being made over this election, I think: even if our candidate of choice does win, don't we see that he will be powerless to satisfy our world's most desperate need? Not a healthy economy. Not decreased taxes, health care, or anything else. Christ. The world needs the gospel far more than anything else.

I have Christ. I am reconciled to God through the gospel. My greatest need has already been met—in such abundance that I can never exhaust it. And any footnotes with lists of exceptions are absent from Romans 8:37-39:

"No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord."

Do we really believe that?

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