Elections – making a choice
Where does power truly belong, during an election period and beyond?
Elections are times of choice. Yes, whenever an election is held, we decide on different issues and between political parties and their candidates. But we also make a deeper choice about what we believe is the power which governs.
What is the ultimate power governing me, my family and friends, my country, and even the world? Is it human personalities or is it God? Is it mortal mind or the divine Mind? Where do I put my faith?
Any polarization or conflict that arises in elections is the result of the belief that power belongs to people, who have both good and evil qualities, instead of to God. We get riled up because we are convinced that there are candidates whose political positions and activities will harm us. If personalities are able to rule, we do have reason to fear.
The Bible points us in a different direction, though: “Power belongeth unto God” (Psalms 62:11). Accepting that God, good, is all-powerful and governing human existence frees us from fear and distress. The Bible also says, “I am the Lord, and there is none else” (Isaiah 45:6). This shows us that the enemy is not a person. It is the false belief that there is a power, mind, or presence other than God.
Ignorance and fear are overcome through Christ, the true idea of God. When Pilate asked Christ Jesus before his crucifixion, “Whence art thou?” he didn’t answer. So Pilate asked Jesus whether he knew that as Roman governor he had the power to kill or free him. Jesus answered, “Thou couldest have no power at all against me, except it were given thee from above” (John 19:11).
Jesus wasn’t afraid; he understood that power belonged to God and not to Pilate.
To Jesus, God wasn’t just a large power in a world full of smaller powers – God, Spirit, was All, the only power. Thus he knew there is no real evil power or mind which could prevent him from fulfilling God’s will and completing his mission. He would be victorious no matter how it looked at that point. And in the resurrection he was indeed victorious.
The First and Second Commandments (see Exodus 20:3, 4) can help us guard our thought against resigning ourselves to any claim of evil, the way Jesus guarded his thought. The First Commandment teaches us to have no other gods before God. We are to have or worship no other power, no other presence, no other might or mind. From this basis, we become confident that God is our King and Christ our Savior, and that nothing else – not even politicians or political parties – can save or destroy.
The Second Commandment brings out that what tempts us away from God are images, mortal beliefs, of material or personal good or of evil – all graven (carved) in thought, and all denying the supremacy of God. We’re not to make “any graven image,” the commandment says.
News reporting, social media, television, convey many images of material power or powerlessness. We make a graven image of what we read or hear when we simply take the false beliefs into our thought rather than letting Christ lift our thinking higher and refusing to honor any power but God, good. Conversely, as we love and worship God, we lose our fear of evil. When the fear is gone, we are able to make intelligent decisions during elections. We will select what represents the highest right under the circumstances.
If our candidate doesn’t win and another does, we have the opportunity to continue to make a wise choice. Mary Baker Eddy, the founder of this news organization, wrote, “Between the centripetal and centrifugal mental forces of material and spiritual gravitations, we go into or we go out of materialism or sin, and choose our course and its results. Which, then, shall be our choice, – the sinful, material, and perishable, or the spiritual, joy-giving, and eternal?” (“Miscellaneous Writings 1883-1896,” p. 19). We can choose the spiritual and go forward as Jesus did with a full faith in God, who is ceaselessly working His purpose out.
As we choose to honor the supremacy of Spirit, it is natural to maintain our higher view of, and trust in, the reality and influence of God’s power, whoever wins high office. We can know that the guidance and direction of God, Love, who is perfect good, is present with those elected, as well as with all who are part of the national government, and we can pray for their receptivity to that wisdom and understanding. We can continue forward, choosing to know that “the kingdom is the Lord’s: and he is the governor among the nations” (Psalms 22:28).