Today was voting day and I did not vote. To be honest I probably would have voted had I been registered. But the fact that I've had two years to register and still didn't get it done is really nobody's fault but mine. Especially when my friend Andrea works at the county office and once picked up a voter registration card for me to fill out at my leisure. I think I left it in her car though. My bad again.
But you make time for the things you value.
So It's only fair that we call a spade a spade and just confess, I don't vote because I don't see it as that important. And by that important I mean, I've made special trips to town just to get milk cause we were out of it, but I wont take the ten minutes to register. Ah its true that apathy is alive and well in the young people!
But let me just stop and preface all of what I'm about to say with this simple truth. After today I have every intention of registering and voting in any and all following elections. Our last president was voted in the november before I turned 18 in December and so in my ignorance I went about my life thinking I had another four years before I had to worry about voting. This little election really snuck up on me. #uneducated voter
That being said, I had conversations today with a few different people on why I wasn't voting and basically my initial feeling on it was why do I want to put any amount of time and resources into merely working to patch the symptoms of a greater core issue? To me it all looks very bleak. And I know that's like the classic tagline for my generation. But I look at the candidates and just say, none of them seem to have hearts that I would want running anything of mine, let alone my state. Like some of those candidates I wouldn't even want to housesit for me.
And I get it. I get both sides. Just because you dont agree with everything about a candidate doesnt mean you should just be irreresonsible and ignore the whole thing. Dont throw the baby out with the bathwater. I get it.
But from everything I can gather, if we just boil it down to its most basic, a lot of voting is taking either uneducated guesses, educated guesses, or just picking the lesser of two evils. Which from a christian standpoint, when is it ever a good idea to pick any kind of evil, regardless of whether its the lesser one?
For a lot of people the issue of whether to vote or not is super black and white, its our civic right and duty and we need to be responsible citizens and even responsible christians and exercise that right or we have no business complaining about the state of things.
But I hardly ever complain about the state of things. The state of things is no surprise to me. We live in a fallen world with a fallen economy led by fallen people. And so for me the issue of whether to vote or not is very muddy. And in the end, the percentage of Calvinist in me goes Romans 13:1 Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God.
So God institutes the authorities that he sees fit, mostly through the willing actions of people, i.e. voters.
So heres my little take on voting for what its worth.
I think its good. I love that God has blessed me to live in a country where I feel safe and I am given a choice about things. I am unbelievably thankful that I'm not under African government or Chinese government or some other tyrannical form of government. I am. I appreciate American freedoms. But in the end, its not the most important thing. And as a follower of Jesus I'm more interested in living in a way that says to those outside the church, we actually have another way of living if you're tired of what this empire has to offer. Yes this economy is screwed, yes people want the right to do drugs whenever they'd like, yes our legal system is flawed, but none of those things should actually change anything about the way I intend to live. Because as much as I am given many freedoms through my American citizenship, I'm given a thousand times more freedom through my citizenship in Christ. And that freedom is irrevocable. And my American citizenship, and my government leaders and the amount of money that I'll have to pay in taxes does not define me. In fact if anything, Christians should be able to find joy in the fact that even if nothing we voted for goes our way, all that money and taxes are to us just silly and temporary and the real importance lies in eternity.
So we can vote sure, but we vote lovingly, in a way that is concerned about what will bring about the greatest potential for eternal well-being for our fellow citizens and if we're followers of Christ living as we should be, then like Paul, we can in any and every circumstance learn to be content.
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