What’s going to happen after the election this November? What kind of a president would Donald Trump be? What kind of nation will we be living in if Hillary Clinton is elected?

Has any election ever provoked so much anxiety as this one?

There’s a lot we can say for certain. To a great degree we know what the candidates stand for and what kind of lives they have modeled. Few of us are comfortable with what we know. As I write this just prior to the Sunday, October 9 debate, I’m not expecting to learn anything tonight that will make me feel any better about what I know.

But there is reason for hope, in fact even for peace. How?

There are very few messages that have stuck with me so well that I could quote their main points years later. One that did stick that way was given years ago by Steve Douglass, now president of the global mission agency Cru. His three points were simple; maybe that’s why I remember them so well: “Do the right thing. The rest is up to God. Be at peace.”

The context in which he gave it had nothing to do with politics, but the principles apply in any situation, and I’ve thought about them often during this election season. I’d like to take a moment to share some of those reflections with you — starting in the middle.

The Rest Is Up To God

We don’t know who is going to be our next president or how the world will turn out, but we do know that God is Lord of heaven and earth. Jesus Christ is King.

We know that His Kingdom is not of this world. When He stood before Pilate and Herod in His trial He could have overthrown not only them but even Caesar in Rome. From a political point of view it might very well have made sense to do so. Pilate was notoriously cruel; in which he was but a reflection of the Roman leadership he represented.

We know that when Jesus had the opportunity to make a seemingly politically sensible decision He chose another way. He accepted the sentence of execution. As Christians we know He won a victory there that far exceeded any political triumph. His death and resurrection defeated death itself!

And thus, strange as it may seem to us today, we know that God’s ways don’t need to make sense politically.

I find that extremely comforting this weekend, when nothing makes sense politically.

Do the Right Thing

It’s comforting because I know I have a responsibility. Sometimes the question is asked, “Should Christians be involved in government?” I don’t know what’s complicated about that. There’s no getting around it. We live in a republic of democratically elected leaders, which means that on election day we, as citizens, are the government. Deciding not to vote isn’t choosing to keep our distance from government, it’s just governing poorly. Voting ignorantly or flippantly is just as bad if not worse. We are responsible to do our best as voters.

So I feel that responsibility weighing very heavily on me. It feels like the whole future of the country is at stake. And it’s supposed to feel that way: elections really matter.

Yet God retains His responsibility too, and unlike us He sees the whole. Based on some Christians’ rhetoric, one way this election might come out would leave us in a situation almost as if all was lost. On one level I agree completely. On another level, though, I know that when Jesus’ followers thought all was lost, God still knew what He was doing. So I can be at peace.

Be at Peace

“Be at peace? Are you nuts? Don’t you realize what’s at stake, domestically and internationally? Don’t you know what we could lose over the next four years?!”

Yes.

God has purposes beyond what we can see. That doesn’t absolve us of the responsibility to act according to what’s within our range of vision, but it should assure us that He can make sense of things even when we can’t.

Our job in this election is to do the right thing, as best as we can discern it. Steve Douglass was realistic on the limits to our wisdom, and we need to be realistic, too. If the “right thing” were obvious in this election there wouldn’t be such turmoil and debate about it. But it’s up to us to do the right thing, based on our best information according to godly values and principles.

We’re responsible to do our best, then, but we are not responsible for the whole outcome of the election. God is.

And we who feel the urgent need to vote well, and the disappointment over the lack of a clearly good option, and the confusion multiplying through all the ads and all the seemingly endless new revelations, and all the anxiety of a hotly contested and highly critical election, can be confident in knowing what we do know:

Do the right thing. The rest is up to God. Be at peace.