We’re studying American history this year. I decided in the spring we would cover it all— even before the sparring over Constitutional rights and protests and the general political drama that has played out over the bulk of the year. Like most of you, I was spoon fed formative ideas of our nation and its founding from textbooks. I was served pre-digested textbook paragraphs that summed up entire episodes in our country’s background with carefully selected wording designed neither to shock nor to incite emotion, but simply to list dates and facts and maybe help me wave the flag a little higher on Independence Day.
Slippery things, facts. It turns out that something can be a fact and be totally, 100% true… and also, through the process of exclusion, be entirely devoid of context and therefore meaning. Homeschooling my children has given me a deeper understanding of U.S. history, and with it, a deeper appreciation. One of my goals as a Christian homeschooler is to shine the light of Christ in all areas of education. Some of the things that light reveals are ugly, guys. Sometimes we have to come face to face with two of the deepest truths of all:
All have sinned. All.
There is no one righteous; no, not one.
America is not immune to those truths. It never has been.
But still, God is at work here. He is sovereign over the entire globe. The U.S. is not forsaken because of her past, or her present. No one is.
I’ve been pondering all of this as we lurch towards next week’s election. We’re living this season here, today. And in five years, ten… we’ll be looking backwards, teaching it to our kids. We’ll have clearer hindsight, we’ll wish we stood closer to this side or that, we will see why our neighbors worried about a or b, and maybe have more compassion. We will have our context, or at least the beginnings of it.
But here’s the thing: God is sovereign over all of it. Then, and now. He’s either omnipotent, or He’s not, guys. It simply can’t go both ways. You can’t believe that the creator of the universe is in every detail of your day, and think He sits silent on the election of a man who will guide the nation in which you live out those days. We may not like His outcome, but… He’s still allowing it. Our job? To figure out what that means, how we are to respond, and to act in ways that glorify Him.
I’m not saying that your feelings and convictions right now don’t matter. Not at all. If God has created you to be a marcher, you’d better get out there and march. If He made you a stirrer of the pot, then by all means, sister— stir. And if He settled your heart in a place where fervent prayer is your weapon, please, be on your knees as often as you can as the days to the election dwindle. We will all be held accountable for our obedience to our callings, and our behavior in the public, political sphere is no different, I believe.
But at the end of the day, we must remember this:
All have sinned. All.
There is no one righteous; no, not one.
And perhaps this, most of all:
“Shower, O heavens, from above, and let the clouds rain down righteousness; let the earth open, that salvation and righteousness may bear fruit; let the earth cause them both to sprout; I the LORD have created it. Woe to him who strives with him who formed him, a pot among earthen pots! Does the clay say to him who forms it, ‘What are you making?’ or ‘Your work has no handles’? —Isaiah 45:7-9
May we not strive against the Lord as the results come pouring in, but rather, bear fruit that glorifies our Potter.