The Day After…

Today is Election Day… a day long in coming! We should be joyful because today means the end of those disturbing political ads that have interrupted our TV shows and invaded our social media. Today means the end of political junk mail that we throw away before ever reading. Today means the end of wondering… but not the end of worrying. They tell us that this is the most momentous election of our lifetime- that the fate of our nation hangs in the balance- each side claiming to be the savior while pointing to the other as the ruin of our democracy. We are overwhelmed by the polarization… contempt… judgement… anger… and Christians have found themselves standing on both sides of the divide.

Our family will stay up tonight, as we traditionally do, to watch the election returns, even though they tell us it will take days to determine the winner of this election. Yet, I wonder if any outcome will bring a win to our nation. We have all lost so much… our civility… our sense of safety… our hope. Some of us have lost friends and family over our allegiances in this election. We have lost trust in our institutions and lost trust in one another. Not since the days of the Civil War has our nation known such divide. We still see vestiges of that Civil War divide in our nation today, so we wonder if healing is possible. But we are a people called to hope because we know the Savior. We hear that hope in Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address, given just one month before General Lee’s surrender at the Appomattox Courthouse. Lincoln knew that the end of the war would bring the beginning of a long healing process to redeem a war-torn nation. Lincoln called the nation to that hard work: 

With malice toward none, with charity for all,
with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right,
let us strive to finish the work we are in,
to bind up the nation's wounds,
to care for him who shall have borne the
battle and for his widow and his orphan,
to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace
among ourselves and with all nations.

Even if the ‘winner’ of this election does not sound Lincoln’s clarion call, we must still take heed. God’s people are called to be ambassadors of reconciliation (II Corinthians 5). We are called to be the mission of Jesus Christ to this war-torn nation that God so loves. Healing seldom comes through political channels. Politicians are never saviors. But we know the One who breathed the world into being. We know the One who loves beyond measure. We know the One who brings life from death. We know the One whose light the darkness cannot overcome. Psalm 33 reminds us: 

No king is saved by the size of his army;
no warrior escapes by his great strength.
A horse is a vain hope for deliverance;
despite all its great strength, it cannot save.
But the eyes of the Lord are on those who fear Him,
on those whose hope is in His unfailing love…
We wait in hope for the Lord; He is our help and our shield.
In Him our hearts rejoice, for we trust in His holy name.
Psalm 33:16-18, 20-21

When we worry what will come the day after the election, Psalm 33 reminds us that our God is greater than any divide. Our God is able to heal any brokenness. Hope can be found in the One who created the world and then so loved that world that He gave his only Son. Today I invite you to join me in praying for our nation, trusting not in a politician or political outcome, but in the One who is greater!

With you… on my knees… light in the darkness… come Lord Jesus.

Anita