My five predictions for November 6

I am not a prophet, but there are five things I can guarantee will be true come November 6. No matter who wins the U.S. election on the 5^th, no matter who is named the next president of the United States, these five things are certain.

Who we elect as president – as senators, congresspersons, governors, ad nauseum – does have consequences. And the next U.S. presidential administration will affect people living in Ukraine, the Middle East, Sudan, Mexico, and so many other parts of the world far from our own borders. But also, whoever the next president is will be less consequential in many areas of our lives than we tend to think.

I’ve turned in my ballot already. The decisions I made were not easy. I have no idea how my fellow citizens will vote and whether mine will matter. It does matter to me that I voted. I take the rights of citizenship seriously. But I remind myself as I vote that how I vote matters less than do other things that I will do this month.

What does matter, to quote Micah, a true prophet of old, is to do justice, love mercy, and to walk humbly with my God.¹ Granted, voting is a part of all that activity, but only a part. I vote maybe once a year, once every four for the president of my country. But I try to live out my call to justice, mercy, humility, and walking with God every minute of every day of my life.

So, who will win the election?

Until the last ballot is counted, who can know? As far as the presidential race is concerned, the electoral college will likely be close, if not the popular vote. We won’t know for certain until ballots are certified in January. But we should have a sense about what has happened by the morning of November 6, even if counts remain unsettled.

But here are five things I can guarantee will be true when you rise on the morning after election day.

1. Our political idolatry will still need to be destroyed.

There have been worse times throughout the short history of the human race and in the much shorter history of our own nation. But only a few times have seen the level of political idolatry that fills our nation today. By idolatry, I mean the biblical idea that we have put other idols, other gods, before The One True God.

Politics has become an idol as much as that golden calf the newly liberated Israelites crafted in the wilderness. They didn’t trust the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob to look after them, so they sought an alternative in their own precious metals.

Speaking of precious metals, money is another idol that rears its ugly head in our culture, but even that idol pales in comparison with the allegiance we are paying to the god of politics these days. It divides families, ruins relationships, captures or destroys churches, turns neighbor against neighbor, becomes a litmus test for faith itself. It has even trapped whole religious movements – on both the right and the left.

This election – however it goes – will not tear down that idol one bit. In fact, the results of this election may increase the idol-worshipping all the more.

Don’t get me wrong. Engaging in politics is in and of itself not a bad thing, any more than using money is, or any other of a whole range of human concerns like autonomy, liberty, or sex. But when politics or money or these other things begin to rule our lives and dictate our relationships and even sway our faith commitments, then they have become gods with a small “g” as much as any golden calf in the desert.

2. We will have to live with each other moving forward.

We live in fractious times, without doubt. But we have been through worse.

What was true at the end of the U.S. Revolutionary War or the U.S. Civil War or the wars against Native Americans, Mexicans, Germans, Japanese – and on and on – is true right now: we will have to wake up on November 6 and go love that neighbor with the wrong sign in front of their house.

In every presidential election season over the past generation, people have talked about moving to Canada if So-and-So gets into office. I am sure our northern neighbors shudder every time. But in reality, we still have to go to school, work, and attend church with people we have demonized and who have returned the favor.

And if we manage to avoid them for the rest of our lives, we will still have to meet them in heaven or hell when all is said and done. Come to think of it, how we relate to them may have an impact on which way we head even more than for them.

Seriously, we have got to find a way to live together as fellow human beings who happen to have sharp, yet important disagreements. We can’t be getting divorces or exiting churches or disowning our relatives or screaming at our Facebook “friends” over things as minor as the Golden Calf of Politics.

And here I speak to my fellow believers. However other people may behave, we have the responsibility to live as Jesus taught us to live – loving our enemies, even our political enemies.

3. Whatever happens in this election has significant consequences, but not eternal consequences.

Don’t get me wrong. How we vote and who wins the election (at any level of government) does have consequences for our nation, our world, and our planet. Like it or not, whoever is U.S. president has enormous impact on world affairs. Who becomes city mayor or county commissioner may not affect folks in Sudan, but they certainly affect folks in their own state.

Regardless what form of government or political philosophy you prefer, good governance is essential. The bills that are passed or vetoed, the regulations that are made or unmade, the laws that are upheld or ignored, the words that are spoken and the tones that carry them, the statesmanship that is demonstrated – or not. All these have great impact on individuals, families, and communities.

But as significant as these choices are – and they are never perfect – they do have limited consequence. What this election does not impact, cannot determine, are eternal outcomes.

These candidates and civic leaders are mere mortals. They have no control beyond their own rule, let alone beyond the grave. They will, like you and me, stand before their Maker one day and give account for all they have – and have not – done. But their influence on this earth will be like puffs of a breeze in the face of the roar of the Lion of Judah.

4. People still have needs that must be met and wrongs that must be righted.

As I write this, our nation’s Gulf Coast and Southern Appalachian hills are reeling from devastation wrought by Hurricane Helene. It will take years for these areas to recover – and these people will need our help to do so. Who is president or governor or senator is of secondary – if any – concern to those who have lost houses and loved ones.

Beyond Helene, what do we do about the countless others in our world who suffer? None of the candidates we have on our ballots is going to be the Messiah to rescue them. Still, government leaders can do much, as can pastors and social workers and nonprofit teams and business leaders and a whole host of others, including you and me.

It will surely take bipartisan effort to “rescue the perishing” and “care for the dying,” as we used to sing when I was a boy. Whether a person has a (D) or an (R) attached to their name, what really matters is what WE are going to do about our neighbor in need. Allow me to identify a few of these neighbors:

• The boy going hungry tonight
• The man who just saw his son blown up by an enemy intent on destroying them all
• The woman with an unplanned newborn unable to cope on her own
• The family fleeing violence and trying to find safety where they are not welcomed
• The pre-teen trying to make sense of who they are
• The elderly woman suffering abuse in a facility she can’t afford and cannot escape
• The girl forced to do things just for some bully’s profit
• The man denied a job for being the wrong color
• The unborn child not given the option of living
• The teenager escaped from an abusive home trying to survive on the streets
• The forgotten old man thinking life is too much to bear
• The woman living without hope and unaware of God’s love for her

I could go on and on, and you could certainly fill in names. These people speak for countless others here and around the world. Whoever wins on November 5, these people are still in need of a Savior. Not some earthly messiah, but One who loves them and who has called us to love them, too.

5. God still reigns.

Maybe it is too trite to say, but on November 6 the sun will still rise. Some might think I am belittling people’s concerns or anxieties about election consequences or the needs of those I’ve listed above. Yet when the dust settles on the ballot box, when the right person or the wrong person (however you may define that) is sworn into office, this one thing remains true: God is on the Throne.

A great hymn rises up in my spirit at times like these. Written by Isaac Watts 300 years ago, it opens like this:

"Jesus shall reign where'er the sun
does its successive journeys run,
his kingdom stretch from shore to shore,
and moons shall wax and wane no more."

His reign is both universal and eternal – and deeply personal. Wherever he reigns there is enduring hope.

If you are a U.S. Citizen or you live in this nation under some other status, November 6 may leave you jubilant or despondent, dancing a happy jig or angry and distraught. But no human power or authority comes anywhere close to what God means to this world.

Listen to the Prophets! Daniel says, “He deposes kings and raises up others.”³ Isaiah says, “He brings princes to naught and reduces the rulers of this world to nothing.”

And lest you think Isaiah is talking only about the candidates you voted against, Isaiah makes it clear he references all earthly rulers. Voicing God, he roars, “To whom will you compare me?” then responds with:

"Do you not know?
Have you not heard?
The Lord is the everlasting God,
the Creator of the ends of the earth.”

People talk as if calamity will befall our nation and our world if the other person wins the presidential election. Only this person can save us, they say.

First, I find it ludicrous to say that some mere human is our source of salvation – in the mouths of believers, it is blasphemy. Second, as much as I may love our country and my own way of life, is my hope only in this nation or this candidate or this way of life? The Golden Calf rears his ugly head again.

On the morning of the 6^th when you see what your fellow citizens have wrought, pause and look beyond and remember who sits on the Throne. God will still be there.

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And for a bonus, take 4 minutes to listen to this.

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1. Micah 6:8 ↩︎
2. Jesus Shall Reign > Lyrics | Isaac Watts ↩︎
3. Daniel 2:21 ↩︎
4. Isaiah 40:23, 25, 28 ↩︎