I just read a great little article in a campus magazine at Fuller.  In it, the writer reminds us of what I’ve been feeling heavily on my heart lately: that the next president is not the hope of the world; Jesus is the hope of the world.  Governments are manmade institutions; the Kingdom of God is His own, and He is the One Ruler of it for all time.

I’m concerned about the election tomorrow.  Not because my hope is in the next president, but because this election feels like a popularity race.  It feels like I’m in high school again and everyone is voting for the suave guy, instead of the guy who’s actually going to do things that help our class.  Sigh.  Really, I don’t love either candidate; supporters of both sides claim that “their” candidate stands for the oppressed.  So then it comes down to who we define as oppressed.  Is it those who are below the poverty line, those who have experienced some sort of discrimination, the unborn…?

So, even though I want McCain to win, my hope is not in him.

My heart is heavy for the morality reflected (or not) in the way we will voite.  I think that the propositions are the greatest tell-tale of where we are morally.  In California, we’re voting on the definition of marriage.  I keep hearing arguments like, “We can’t deny people their rights.”  Our nation is more concerned about rights that it is about what is right. You can’t blame them…they’ve been taught by television.   But Christians who support gay marriage you can blame, because they know which Compass they should be guided by, and they fly in the face of that Compass.  It might sound nice to let gay people marry (and I’m not saying they shouldn’t have rights), but to redefine the biblical covenant of marriage because it’s “what sounds nice,” or even, “what I want,” is not living life according to anything buf self-directed morality.  And self-directed morality is wrong.  If you are a follower of Jesus Christ and you don’t follow His Word, then you are saying you don’t trust His Word, which ultimately would prove you don’t really believe His Word, which would lead me to say something so bold as, are you really a follower of Jesus?

Driving on the freeway north toward Los Angeles today I saw written in the back window of a car, “Don’t hate.  No on 8.”  That shows that those who are against proposition 8 don’t understand those who are behind it.  Ultimately, those for a Yes vote on Prop 8 are for healthy families, those which will give children the proven best situation in which to grow up: with a mother and a father.  Those for Prop 8 are actually acting out of love.  That’s not to say that some people have not turned it into an opportunity to express hate in revolting and unloving ways.  Those are not the ones who stand behind the proposition, although they are the ones who get the most attention.  Ultimately, those who support a biblical definition of marriage act in love because we know, according to God’s Word, homosexuality to be a sin.  To support a sinful lifestyle is to neglect the responsibility we have as followers of Christ to spread His love through His Word; and obeying His Word is not always easy.  Deuteronomy 30:19-20 says, “…choose life in order that you may live, you and your descendants, by loving the LORD your God, by obeying His voice, and by holding fast to Him…”  Loving, obeying, and holding fast to God are not always easy, but they are what He requires.

And then there’s Proposition 4.  The people of this country are so concerned about what we want that we forget, just like with the definition of marriage issue, that choices in life aren’t always easy, and making the right choice is often the hardest choice to make.  Nevertheless, if we are people who stand for the oppressed, then we ought to be people who stand for the unborn.  We should also be people who are willing enough to do the dirty work of ministering to and caring for women with unplanned pregnancies.  No, their lives are not easy, but until you’ve ministered to women who have aborted children and live with the regret, don’t tell me about the right to choose the life or death of a baby. (And DON’T get me started on the fact that MY tax dollars go to support Planned Parenthood.  It makes me physically ill.)

There’s an African proverb that says, “Have your baby, for you never know whose womb holds the chief.”  How many “chiefs” has our country aborted?  Proposition 4 makes it mandatory that an adult family member of a minor is informed when she is going to have an abortion.  Some say this may cause risk to the girl.  What about the risk of her being manipulated or molested and forced to have an abortion without anyone to stand for her, or the risk of her future emotional and spiritual bankruptcy as she deals with the emotional, psychological, and spiritual effects of what she has done (or been done to her)?  The Proposition is not about denying girls their rights, it is about protecting them from making choices alone that they are perhaps not mature enough to make.  To put it in perspective, “In California, a girl under age 18 can’t get a tan at a tanning salon, a cavity filled, or an aspirin dispensed by the school nurse without a parent knowing. But a doctor can perform a surgical or chemical abortion on a young girl without informing a parent” (http://www.yeson4.net/).

My heart is weeping today, not because I put hope in government, but because I see the moral decay and ruin of the people around me.  My heart weeps today because I long for people to make choices based in a saving knowledge of the loving grace of their Creator and Savior, Jesus Christ, who died for their sins even while they sinned (Romans 5:8), so that they might, upon believing in Him and calling Him Lord (Rom 10:9), walk with Him for abundant life on earth (John 10:10) and eternal bliss for eternity (John 3:16).  My heart weeps because I see the world in which my children will live.  My heart weeps because I know the heart of Jesus weeps as we watches the people He made choose anything but True Life, anything but wisdom as it is described and taught in the Bible.  My heart weeps because I see the disdain people have for my Savior, Jesus Christ, the One in whom I place my hope.