It's an election year in the United States, and if you're an American and didn't know that, then you have successfully sequestered yourself from TV, radio and the Internet. You've unlikely spoken to anyone in the past year. In fact, you're probably living off the land alone somewhere in Montana's Rockies. And I doubt you're reading this article.

The campaign haggling and rhetoric has so pervaded our homes that it lights up conversations in cubicles, factory break rooms, college dorms and around kitchen tables. And often the debate heats up with feverish emotions — "If my candidate doesn't win, America will be lost." At the same time, some express despondency that no candidate embodies their values. And others just don't know who to vote for.

And yet we continually hear warnings about the gravity of this election. Americans seem more attuned to politics perhaps because so many issues are weighing on our minds. The U.S. is at war, and its enemies are increasing. The stock market has made record plunges, and analysts threaten that today's economical woes could mirror the Great Depression. Talk of environmental apocalypse drives fears over our future on earth. And issues of justice and righteousness continue to polarize the American people.

These are very real matters that will affect our lives and our nation, and that's why it makes sense to engage politics. Undeniably, the person in the oval office wields a tremendous degree of power to shape our world in ways that strike at the core of our homes.

That's why what I say next may sound a bit strange: The election is overrated.

I'm wrong, of course, if what matters most is life on earth, and particularly life during the next four years. And I suspect that many share my tendency to fret most not about what happened yesterday or what will happen in 50 years, but what is happening to me right now. If I'm sitting under a dentist's drill, I want to know whether the Novocain has taken effect. If I'm about to take an exam, I'm concentrating on whether I'll pass the test. We tend to be self-focused people living in the present or very near future.

If I were to say that what matters most is what happens 1,000 years from now, you'd understandably chafe. "I'm not going to be alive then, and I doubt my descendents will even know my name. That's just too far away." But even talking in terms of a thousand years adjusts the lens on this election.

Scripture weighs in on this issue to shift our perspective even more significantly. The psalmist states straight out:

Put not your trust in princes,
In a son of man, in whom there is no salvation.
When his breath departs he returns to the earth;
On that very day his plans perish. (Ps 146:3–4)

Replace "princes" with "presidents" and "plans" with "policies," and you have a picture of what the psalmist might say today. The fact is, whoever takes office will eventually die, and our hopes in him or her will perish because the deceased cannot influence legislation.

The prophet Isaiah makes a similar statement:

O LORD our God,
Other lords beside you have ruled over us....
They are dead, they will not live;
They are shades, they will not arise. (Isa 26:13–14)

Neither of these passages say, "Don't exercise your citizen responsibility to vote even though you're given the opportunity to influence positions of power." But they emphatically say not to put your trust in rulers and politicians.

Instead, we are to hope in God, and in contrast with the prince who "returns to the earth," God is the one "who made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, who keeps faith forever" (Ps 146:5–6). God has power over the earth that will swallow up the human ruler.

God is the one "who executes justice for the oppressed, who gives food to the hungry" (Ps 146:7). Politicians can at best only partially deliver justice. Christians look to one who can deliver, and as the body of Christ, they participate in God's visible and invisible work to promote his justice and relief. And that's why the psalmist says, "Blessed is he whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the LORD his God" (Ps 146:5).

God offers a platform that no politician could ever proclaim. Listen to these activities of the supreme divine being:

The LORD sets the prisoners free;
The LORD opens the eyes of the blind.
The LORD lifts up those who are bowed down;
The LORD loves the righteous.
The LORD watches over the sojourners;
He upholds the widow and the fatherless,
But the way of the wicked he brings to ruin. (Ps 146:7b–9)

In no way should a Christian ignore the difficulties facing humanity here on earth; God clearly does not. They are central to His activity described in this psalm. And yet it is too small a thing for God to be wrapped up solely with earthly matters, for He sees reality not from a 50-year perspective or a 1,000-year perspective, but an eternal perspective.

That eternal view culminates Psalm 146 with the psalmist's reflection on God's sovereignty. Unlike the earthly ruler,

The LORD God will reign forever, Your God, O Zion, to all generations. Praise the LORD!

On September 19, 2008, John Roth, Professor of History at the Mennonite-based Goshen College, gave an address at the Conference on Faith and History held in Bluffton, Ohio, in which he argued that Mennonites and other Anabaptists are diminishing the sovereignty of God in their approach to society. He described how, in contrast to their tradition, many Mennonites have embraced political action so much as to become more comfortable with partisan rhetoric than peaceful subjection to God's providence.

Roth called for renewal among Anabaptists to reassert their belief in God's sovereignty in radical ways. He suggested that if they truly believe God was in control of this world, they should express that belief in visible ways. He made two suggestions: (1) take a six-week fast from all media except church- and mission-based outlets, asserting that there are more important things than minute-by-minute political reports; and (2) refrain from voting in this election, asserting the personal belief that God is in control of even American politics.

I'm not personally a Mennonite, and it makes me squirm to hear someone suggest we shouldn't exercise the privilege of voting when we could influence our society for good. And yet Roth's comments challenge how strongly I believe that God is in control. Are my hopes resting in a mortal prince? Do I doubt that God can accomplish His purposes if my preferred candidate doesn't get elected? And have I put so much emphasis on politics that I've forgotten God works in surprising ways — and perhaps most often — apart from any political machine?

Christ Himself was killed by a mortal prince in what appeared to be the greatest tragedy of history: The Man who had offered the kingdom of God to His followers died at the hands of the state. But what looked like political defeat was in fact victory through Christ's resurrection, and Pontius Pilate, that mortal prince, went down in infamy — a grand reversal.

Jesus told Pilate, "My kingdom is not of this world" (John 18:36). And while getting my preferred candidate in office may make my life easier on earth today, Christ's example demonstrates the power of another kingdom. Though strain, persecution and even death may come, we hope in God and in His "kingdom that cannot be shaken" (Heb 12:28). That's the enigma of the gospel that speaks to us even today in 2008 on the eve of another election.

In talking of "political duties" in Great Britain, C. S. Lewis himself stated, "A man may have to die for our country, but no man must, in any exclusive sense, live for his country. He who surrenders himself without reservation to the temporal claims of a nation, or a party, or a class is rendering to Caesar that which, of all things, most emphatically belongs to God: himself."¹

So how much does your vote weigh? By some standards, it could tip the scale of a district, a state and perhaps the whole general election. From another viewpoint, we each drop one pebble into dump trucks filled with millions. And while pooling votes together accumulates single stones into shovelfuls, none of us can control what happens in this election. Yet God remains ever on his sovereign throne.

Another question, in light of our finitude and our duty to give ourselves to God, is this: What weight can we carry in our hands? A bowl of oatmeal for a starving child? A two-by-four to build a house for the homeless? A Bible to share God's good news? We are the hands and feet of Christ who can uphold the widow and orphan, give food to the hungry, take in a sojourner, and raise a banner for the oppressed.

Come November, if your favored candidate loses, do not lose heart — and do use hands. Worship God by acting where you can with the time God gives you, and entrust yourself and our world to the God who outlasts any president or prince. Then together we can proclaim with the psalmist:

I will praise the LORD as long as I live;
I will sing praises to my God while I have my being....
The LORD God will reign forever.

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1. C. S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1949), 53.