This week, many Christians are fearing the American election.

You can’t fault them; after all, they can easily tell you their list of reasons we should be afraid.  Often we are misguided or misinformed, but sometimes our concerns are legitimate.

What do we do when our election fears are founded?

Let’s be honest, there are many ways we naturally respond, and many are not healthy.  Our base instincts of fight, flight, or freeze often lead us to vilify others (even brothers and sisters in Christ), run from any conversation about politics, or simply shut down.  We can become so focused — or even addicted — to responding to fear that we stop responding to God.

Scripture is clear about our relationship to God and fear:

• What is it that you think must happen in order for God to be seen as a refuge, strength, and help in the midst of the election?
• What could happen that would make you question his protection?

Don’t rush past this; honestly — humbly — think about your past responses and assumptions.  Truthfully, we do have expectations we want God to meet, and we’ve drawn lines He cannot cross, though we are great at convincing ourselves otherwise (“The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure.  Who can understand it?“, Jeremiah 17:9)

What are the psalmist’s answers to those questions?  While we are here fearing certain candidates, policies, and agendas, he has decided that we should not fear even if the earth is completely destroyed.  Forget a problematic leader: there wouldn’t even be a country to lead!

“Are you saying we shouldn’t care about [insert agenda you are passionate about]?!”

No.

What the Psalmist is calling us to — and what I am calling believers to in the midst of this and future elections — is to answer this question:

Who is leading you: God or Fear?

You cannot serve two masters, and no matter how God-seeking we aspire to be, our actions, words, responses, and pursuits too often reveal that fear — fear of man, of death, of loss — is our guide.

No matter what happens on November 5th, if you identify as a God-follower, you must be willing to “seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness” even amidst crumbling mountains and raging seas.  God will still be God even if America were to collapse; even the Psalmist knew this:

Nations are in uproar, kingdoms fall;
he lifts his voice, the earth melts.
The Lord Almighty is with us;
the God of Jacob is our fortress.
Psalm 46:6-7

He knew that no leader, no nation, no agenda could be our God; there is only One.  We know this too, yet so easily get pulled into the political fray.  Fortunately, God — through the psalmist — gives us a way through:

He says, “Be still, and know that I am God;
I will be exalted among the nations,
I will be exalted in the earth.”
Psalm 46:10

We know this verse, but I do not think we understand it.  We think it is simply about having a quiet time with God where we acknowledge Him, but it is immensely more:

• BE STILL: This is not about keeping our mouths and bodies still, but all of ourselves.  Jesus fleshed it out in Mark 12:30 when he said, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.”  We must still our hearts by releasing our grip on our hopes and passions.  We must still our soul by owning that there is a spiritual reality that we cannot control.  We must still our minds by “leaning not on our own understanding” (Proverbs 3:5).  We must still our strength by relinquishing our battling to Him.  Every bit of us must become submitted to Him; otherwise, it will remain submitted to something else, and we will be incapable of reaching the next element.
• KNOW THAT I AM GOD: It is only in utter stillness of self that we can accomplish a truly impossible feat: to know the God of the universe.  To be clear, this is actually something we will spend eternity doing, but there are things we can come to know, namely His Godness.  He is God.  In our stillness we can confront why we are unwilling for that to be true in so many areas of our lives, and thus let fear, selfish ambition, and vain conceit drive us.  What would be different in our political engagement if we truly knew He is God?  What must then change today so that we can truly “love God and love others” rather than the mere appearance of it?

This is not a challenge to vote or to not vote, nor is it a push for the “right candidate”: it is an appeal to believers to make God Himself rather than godly pursuits the guide for our political engagement.   The Teachers of the Law believed they were “seeking God”, but ultimately killed His son because they had a “form of Godliness” rather than a total pursuit of Him:

But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days. People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God— having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with such people.
2 Timothy 3:1-5

Church, do not be fooled: amidst politics we are prone to become such people.

This week and beyond, let us be bold enough to be still and know the true God; and as we come to know Him, to choose to love Him no matter the cost.