Is God interested in politics? Is he liberal or conservative? Just in case you haven't noticed, we are right in the middle of an election year. If you haven't been inundated by political views and election rhetoric, you either live in seclusion, or you may just not care. I must admit, I am finding myself falling into the second category. Don't get me wrong, it's not that I don't realize the importance of our political system. I believe that we have the best system of electing government leaders in the world, and for the most part, it works. However, I've find myself to be just a tad disenchanted as of late, and growing more apathetic as we speed toward November.So as I sipped on my third cup of coffee this morning, I asked myself: "Why?" Why is this Presidential campaign beginning to raise more frustration than excitement? And then I heard three little words from my youngest son that revealed the missing piece of the puzzle: "Daddy, right or left?" No, he wasn't asking me to expound on my political views. He was asking which cabinet his favorite cereal was in. We are visiting Paw Paw's house, and he was busy investigating the kitchen layout. But for some reason, those words found the little file in my brain marked "POLITICS" and decided that's where they belonged. Right words. Wrong file. But the puzzle piece fit.
It's funny, but when you look at our political structure through God's point of view, it doesn't seem to make as much of a difference as we tend to make it out to be. I imagine God looking down upon His creation and thinking to Himself, "What in the world are these guys trying to do? Can't they see the path that I have clearly carved out for them?" And yes, I believe that there is a "path". Not the path to Heaven (that's an entire other blog), but a path of how we should function as humans. How we should live in this world and live with one another. Within God's sovereign plan, there is no "right" or "left"; and to be honest, I'm sick of the whole debate. I'm beginning to see that most of us are preceding in the "wrong" direction.
You see, the Bible flat out tells us that we usually screw things up. In Proverbs 14:12, it tells us "There is a way that seems right to a man, but in the end it leads to death." Just when we think we have it ALL figured out, BAM! We fall on our proverbial butts. And I'm afraid that's where our country finds itself today: within our culture and the Church.
As humans, we find it difficult to find the "middle ground", don't we? We don't like the hiking trails in the park as much as we like the swing. We seem to find the straight and narrow path that God has specifically designed for man to follow, but our selfishness gets in the way and we drift. We cut off the nose to spite the face and try and get our swings as high as we can. One extreme to the other. We react rather than interact.
When I think about it, I'm not really conservative and I'm not really liberal. I try not to classify myself as either, just because a particular leader, teacher or pastor tells me which I should lean. And I surely don't think God leans one way or the other. I don't think God endorses a particular presidential candidate. I don't think God is a member of any particular church and I don't think any one pastor or teacher is His favorite. God is neither "right" nor "left". He just is.
God tells Israel through the prophet Isaiah, "Whether you turn to the right or the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, "This is the way; walk in it." Pretty simple. Pretty straight forward. So at least for today, I'm going to walk His path for a while. I'm not going left and and not going right. I'm just going to sit on the swing and rest. Sounds pretty good when you think about it.