Follow the Leader!

Well, friends, it's 2016. This is the year we elect a new President.  This is a big responsibility and a great privilege we have as citizens. I'm not entirely sure I would have been on the side of the revolutionaries back in 1776 (Don't judge; it's a complicated matter), but I am so glad that we have the freedom we enjoy. God's hand in our history is unmistakable.

It is with some fear and not a little trembling that I approach this coming election. The desire, of course, is to elect someone who is a person of integrity, someone we can confidently follow as the leader of our nation. Who might that be? I am forming some opinions, but here's the difficulty: Whenever I think I have settled on a candidate, I learn of some small feature in the person's policy that I am uncomfortable with.

The situation is not unlike being involved in any organization---including a church or a school.  We sometimes may be puzzled by or may disagree with a particular decision or way of handling things. But the question I have put to friends is this: Can we trust our leaders? Are these honest people who are seeking God's will and trying to follow Him? If so, then I will follow and rely on God to do the leading.

Now about the President. Whom can we trust? I am still working on it. How about you? Let us pray sincerely and then support an individual of integrity, even if we may quibble with fine points of policy. I'm looking for someone who has "clean hands and a pure heart, who has not lifted up his soul to vanity nor sworn deceitfully" (Psalm 24:4).

I'm also trying--by God's grace--to be that kind of person, for someone is following me.  Let us move forward in this new year with care but also with confidence. Our God is "the King of glory" (Ps. 24).

--Sherry Poff