The Morning After

And the sound of rain

I woke to the sound of rain today, and my first thought was something Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount. The rain falls on the righteous and the unrighteous. I thought of the political sorting a lot of us tend to do, believing our candidates and causes to be righteous—and the candidates and causes of our political opponents to be unrighteous. I thought of my own firm belief that judging, with the presumption of total certainty, isn’t ours. It certainly isn’t helpful for the real work of democracy, which is lively debate and eventual compromise.

I went to bed last night close to 11 pm. By that time, it was looking likely that Trump would win Georgia, North Carolina, and Wisconsin. I was fine to wait for a more official result in the morning, so I went to bed—and slept soundly. Because this is what God’s people can do, knowing what they know: that elections come and go; that presidents rise and fall; that the Lord Jesus is king and he reigns forever.

I miss the 40-day election cycle in Canada. Signs pop up in yards, and before you know it, they are down again. Politics don’t dominate the landscape as they do here (though that might have been my perspective, given that during our years in Canada, I was never a citizen with the right to vote). This short-circuiting of politics, as gladiatorial sport, feels saner and more salutary for our common life.

We can have our disagreements, but then we must learn to live together.

This morning, I woke up and padded downstairs to make my coffee. In my rule of life, I’ve set out the intention not to read the headlines or check my email before I’ve spent the first hour of the morning in prayer and Bible reading. But this morning, I made an exception and read the headline from The New York Times.

TRUMP STORMS BACK: Stunning Return to Power After Dark and Defiant Campaign.

I decided then that I had a choice: to let others tell me the story I am living or to remember, rehearse, and proclaim a truer story. That elections come and go. That presidents rise and fall. That the Lord Jesus is king and he reigns forever.

I have never been convinced that Trump’s worst qualities were (and would be) the source of his good governance. I find unpredictability and “bullshitting” and the thirst for vengeance to be unseemly qualities in my neighbors, much less my elected officials. And yet I accept the results of this democratic election. I say thanks for the opportunity to register my opinion. And I recommit to the work of prayer for all those in elected office.

Most of all, I commit to displacing politics from its preoccupying place. I will not think primarily of this election. I will not listen primarily to podcasts endlessly discussing this result. I will give myself to the good work God has assigned to me, even writing here and “opinionating” with as much humility and gospel confidence as I can.

There are habits of faith before me, and I will, by God’s grace, keep at them.