When You Need Hope After the Election

I’m writing these words before I know who our next U.S. president will be or how you will feel about the outcome. I’m proud I was able to vote and I don’t know about you, but I’m ready for the campaigning to be over. I know it’s been a heavy process for most of us trying to make decisions that are best for the future.

I’ve also been exhausted not just by the media and politicians but by the way neighbors, friends, and family have spoken in person and online. Watching and listening to people detest the “other side” over every topic has made me feel hopeless at times. I’ve noticed that no matter the party or the issue, the enraged ugliness does not create the change desired. And what saddens me most is that it’s equally coming from both individual believers and those who don’t know Jesus yet.

I wonder if this election’s results are not just about who gets elected or even about the next four years in the framework of eternity. Maybe what’s being brought to our attention is our response to the outcome and whether or not we really love our neighbor.

I loved what my friend and fellow (in)courage contributor, Michelle Reyes, shared recently on her Instagram prior to the election: “Our allegiance is not to a political party but to King Jesus. Neither Biden nor Trump is our true leader. God is. Our true home is not the United States, but heaven. And we must remind ourselves that we are strangers and ‘aliens’ in the land we currently Iive on.”

Our role as aliens in this nation is to show others God’s love. I don’t believe government policy is the only answer to our country’s problems, but it’s a part of the solution, with each of us taking the responsibility to love each other well so true transformation can happen.

And as neighbors, we need to learn to live together. Our role is “not to have bitterness, wrath, anger or slander, but put those things away, so we can be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another (and ourselves), just as God in Christ forgave you” (‭‭Ephesians‬ ‭4:29-32‬ ‭ESV).‬‬

If you feel like you just can’t love those who believe differently than you, then you’re right. It is not humanly possible to love as Jesus loves in our own strength or willpower. We must first allow Him to transform us with His love and grace, so we might overflow with His peace to others.

We need to figure out how to care for one another despite how we feel about the results of the election. How we live our daily lives reveals whom we trust and believe in, and if Christ is our foundation, we must remember that in Him, we are called to actively love one another in word and deed.

Love will transform our nation for the better, one person at a time. And when we love as Jesus does, others will be able to see God — the Hope that never changes even in the midst of turmoil.